SHiELD! The high energy laser in a pod for 5th gen & 6th gen fighters and bombers

So! Today was an interesting day. Not only are we getting the Arsenal Plane, it seems the US Air Force wants a pod containing an electric laser(*) to be mountable on fighters and bombers. We've heard of this before, but now it seems they are going for a deployment circa 2021. This means they feel the tech is pretty mature. The point of the laser, called SHiELD, is to shoot down missiles when they attack the fighter or bomber.

Zaph and I disagree about lasers. Each of us has our good points on this. If this comes to fruition, the zap guns in pods for self defense would make things really interesting for air to air combat. Not the least of which is the dogfight.

*. vs a chemical laser. *shudder*

a reply to: anzha

I love the laser as a DIRCM system. I just disagree with it as a ranged weapon.

a reply to: anzha. Question for the more laser-physics adapted minds In
the group. What's the reasoning behind this being an electric laser? Is it possibly to take advantage of the power output from the new fusion reactor that everyone has stopped talking about?

a reply to: shagg

Electric lasers don't require large amounts of scary fuel. The COIL on the YAL-1A used gaseous chlorine, molecular iodine, and an aqueous mixture of hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide for fuel for the laser.

a reply to: shagg

You couldn't get a decent chemical laser on a fighter. Too many tanks, too much weight, too few shots.

You can also power a nice laser in more than one way from the fighter's engine. One way is to turn the engine INTO a big gas dynamic laser, so it's sort of a chemical laser, I suppose.

a reply to: Bedlam
Thanks gents! Mighty obliging, you experts are.
Seriously I love the aviation forum. It's amazing the things that come up and get mostly intelligently discussed, mostly. Really appreciate you guys and gals.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: anzha

I love the laser as a DIRCM system. I just disagree with it as a ranged weapon.

I love it as a weapon .. when the tech has matured enough.

You can also power a nice laser in more than one way from the fighter's engine. One way is to turn the engine INTO a big gas dynamic laser, so it's sort of a chemical laser, I suppose.

Need a good storage sytem I would think maybe...Then recharge times but yeah having a high spinning turbine being used as a dynamo would be amazing..

originally posted by: Blackfinger

You can also power a nice laser in more than one way from the fighter's engine. One way is to turn the engine INTO a big gas dynamic laser, so it's sort of a chemical laser, I suppose.

Need a good storage sytem I would think maybe...Then recharge times but yeah having a high spinning turbine being used as a dynamo would be amazing..

Well, the exhaust, according to some, can be lased, if you hold your mouth just right.

Lots of left over energy there.

And, of course, there are...ummm... jet engine variants that could have a lot higher exhaust velocities except when you're tapping the exhaust flow for energy to fire your lazor. Pew pew pew!

Lots of left over energy there.

LOL well its already hot :-P

originally posted by: Blackfinger

Lots of left over energy there.

LOL well its already hot :-P

And it's ionized! And if you hold your mouth just right, you can convert some of that energy into a nice laser beam. Initial work's done. Is it something worth doing, meh.

You can also take the energy in the exhaust and/or intake and convert it to a LOT of electrical energy. You can use that to run the laser. You just lose some thrust for a bit. But you can use the equipment for making your jet engine way more efficient and flexible when you're not firing.

Oooohhh Ionised gas...Where have I heard that before..Cough "Plasma stealth" Cough..Like a turbo but with more awesomeness it makes sense as with aircraft its all about efficiency through the air.Lighter aircraft equals less fuel,extended range and more agility..Just take out that big fan up top of the F35

originally posted by: Blackfinger
Oooohhh Ionised gas...Where have I heard that before..Cough "Plasma stealth"

Plasma is a lot easier to work with than non-ionized atmo.

But yeah, there were some cool demos with lasing jet engine exhaust. You're only a tweak away from other gas dynamic lasers. Maybe one tank of goo. A very corrosive tank, but one, if you're clever. Especially if you don't have to worry about killing other personnel on the ground.

However, there are somewhat classified engine techniques that can borrow some from here, contribute some to there, and in general make a jelly bean jet engine a lot more amazing, performance wise. And at points, you can just divert a metric #-heap to the use of other higher powered electrical devices. Temporarily.

a reply to: Bedlam

I think I'll bypass this topic.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

I should, grant you. Although some of it is in very open lit. Nonetheless, technically, I am a bad person.

a reply to: Bedlam

most of my reading is in a paper written by Anne, Yueler & Hall. problem is the second i got into it, i found it draining my energy.

a reply to: Bedlam

Think aloud.

You'd need to place the resonator chamber mirrors in the exhaust path, but before it gets outside. That's not too hard.

The problem is whether or not you get a good wavelength out of it or not. Wrong wavelength and the atmospheric propagation will be crap. mid IR is what you want.

If its the wrong wavelength you can't pump another laser with it to tweak it. I think.

originally posted by: anzha
a reply to: Bedlam
The problem is whether or not you get a good wavelength out of it or not. Wrong wavelength and the atmospheric propagation will be crap. mid IR is what you want.

Consider that THEL is a lot like a combustor without the turbine part. You're lacking one, maybe two goops. And if you don't mind the result being toxic, and you probably don't care at 10,000 feet, you could probably get that down to one. Maybe.

However, while it's pretty obvious what that might be, and I even said it here years ago, I think, I was reminded that it was, in fact, a big hairy secret deal, so go fish.

But yeah, mid IR is nice. A brisk search would probably bring up the project and its associated patents. I'm sort of running around doing domestic things like buying groceries or I'd look.

a reply to: Bedlam

I worked at HELSTF. I can't comment more on THEL or MIRACL. Sorry.

a reply to: anzha

I worked on it at Redstone. At one point they *ahem* minimized the tankage a bit by deuterating something or other instead of just doing something else and I sort of laughed about it being a big secret deal but it actually was, go figure.

Seemed pretty obvious as the next step at the time.