USAF wants Lasers for its post 2030 Fighter.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: James1982

No, it's more like this. That's the NG Guardian system testing on a KC-135. It's a bolt on system in testing, that detects any MANPADS or other SAM system launched at the aircraft, and fires a laser at it. The laser works best against an IR missile, by blinding the seeker head, so it can't see the target anymore.

That makes much more sense for a fighter sized craft!

I got confused because the article talks about them looking for 3 different levels of laser platforms, with one of them being high-powered ones for attacking targets, I had assumed they were talking about mounting it on the fighter due to the way the article was written.

a reply to: James1982

Yeah, the article wasn't the best written. Eventually we may see something like that, but right now the most effective high powered battlefield laser was mounted on a C-130 for testing. Worked pretty well too, but it's still pretty big, and fairly short range.

Well I think one of the reasons the ABL was terminated was because by the time they could get a fielded system they knew that technology had passed the ABL by. Now solid state lasers are at weapons strength. they do not require a turret with servos hydraulics or prism/mirrors/ moving lenses. they are several times smaller. they are approaching the size and weight limits making them viable as a fighter mounted system. they are now hummer mountable sizes. these new technologies are able to add thousands of either optical fiber lasers or led lasers or slab type lasers into one beam. they are capable of being aimed by phase shift, frequency shift or constructive and destructive interference just like a radar beam. the frequency is somewhat tunable as well. they can be aimed at just under the speed of light. potentially the weapon emitter can also be a LIDAR sensor as well. because each emitter element is relatively low power the cooling system is greatly simplifed and smaller than the ABL system. ABL was cool but it is obsolete and was obsolete by the middle to later part of its development cycle.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: James1982

Because at this point lasers are just jamming systems, not actual weapons. The last attempt at putting a laser on a plane was the YAL-1A. The laser was so big that it took a 747-400 to carry it, and then they ran into problems with range, and weather causing problems, etc. Lasers with any kind of long range to them are still problematical for now. As jammers though, and short range systems like that, they work pretty well.

Here's an article from the BBC (video clip 2 mins) about the future development of aircraft from BAE systems in the UK….

Currently looking at

1./ 'Transformer' type aircraft….
2./ 3-D priniting of components whilst airborne
3./ Lazer weapons….

www.bbc.com...

quite interesting, especially the first…

Cheers

PDUK