mm, so whats the difference? they are still manned in way or another, theres just no direct risk to the peson controlling it.
The diffrence is with the pilot. If you controll a aircraft from the ground, almost anyone will be qualified to fly one. You dont need to have stamina, upper body strength. You dont suffer from the G-forces. Besides fom actually flying and being 20000ft up in the air, pilots are cool because they can withstand alot of beating in the aircraft and still do their job. They put their lives on the line.
A person remote controlling an aircraft from the ground is not what i would call a pilot. Also by removing the pilot from the cockpit, the aircraft can pull much sharper turns with higher G´s for a prolonged time. Now how fun would that be at an airshow? It would just look at the same as these small R/C aircraft you fly yourself, but in a bigger scale. Ok, they are fun to watch but its not as fun and impressive as the real deal.
Would you still like to fly a 39 Gripen if it was unmanned, sitting infront a screen or with viritual glasses?