US Military to Install Laser Turrets on Combat Airplanes

[rhoenix]

Oh yes. It's laser o'clock.

It was science fiction before, but now it's really happening, Young Skywalker: The US Navy and Air Force are going to install liquid-cooled, solid-state lasers in combat airplanes. Laser turrets designed to defend the planes by shooting incoming threats like surface-to-air missiles and rockets. Seriously. The above is an official concept image by DARPA, but integration is happening this year, with real firing tests coming in 2014.
The USAF has been playing with lasers in planes for a while. They worked to create the the highly successful—but ultimately shelved—Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed. Remember Reagan's Star Wars? This was one of the few technologies that we got to work outside those 3D animations that scared the Soviets so much.

But that was a huge megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser designed to take down intercontinental ballistic missiles and other surface-to-surface weapons. That's why it required a 747 to ferry it around.

These are solid-state lasers that will be light enough to be installed in bombers and fighter jets, and will be fired to defend themselves against anti-air defenses like surface-to-air missiles and rockets.

The first one is called Hellads, a laser planned to be installed in tactical aircraft (the one pictured above is a B-1 bomber). Using a series of unit cells, the laser will be capable of delivering 150kW—meeting the their 5 kilogram to one kilowatt design goal. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has already showed that they can meet the spec with a single and two-unit system that was capable of producing 34kW. This kind of energy is enough to take down the threats faced by these planes.

General Atomics and DARPA say that fabrication was completed in 2012. In 2013 they will integrate it with the different systems required and, by 2014, perform real-world tests against real threats fired at the planes.

And the Hellads is not the only self-defense laser the military is playing with. Lockheed Martin and DARPA are now entering a test phase for another self-defense laser, the Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control. This will be like the an automatic laser turret capable of taking down missile threats from any direction. According to DARPA, they weren't previously able to make this system work because of the turbulence caused by the engine:

High-energy laser systems are currently limited to a forward field of regard due to turbulent density fluctuations in the aft sector of the turret that severely degrade the laser beam fluence on target.

The new laser will be able to take on rear threats by using flow control and adaptive optics, which will eliminate the distortion. Like the concept image indicates, they plan to install this laser in high speed fighter jets.

According to Lockheed and DARPA, they have already conducted full-scale wind-tunnel tests and now they are looking to install a sub-scale laser turret in an actual plane.

Seriously people, I keep imagining Han Solo shouting "Great kid! Don't get cocky!"

Images from the article (from concept art DARPA has on its walls):




I just can't help but think - here we are, 2013, and we're starting to see laser weapons in real life, amongst many other shocking and mind-boggling discoveries.

The one thing that makes me think here is that the route being taken is solid-state lasers, not free-electron. From what I know as a layman, solid-state has the advantage of raw power, at the expense of beam variability (which means it can't be adjusted for different conditions easily). Free-electron is less powerful, but much more variable in terms of beam wavelength, which allows it to adapt to different atmospheric conditions much more easily.

Then again, if this weapon is meant to be mounted on a sky-borne platform, I suppose the atmospheric conditions up there wouldn't vary too terribly much, barring a storm or something.

Welcome to the motherfucking future, bitches.

[Batman]

I suspect altitude is going to factor into those 'not varying much' atmospheric conditions (what with the changing air density and all), as will the speed of the aircraft at the time and, indeed, the weather (fog, clouds, rain etc in the way of the laser=groovy, we can now see the beam. Not so hot from the shooter's perspective, though I admit I don't know how much that will affect the effectiveness of a triple figure KW laser).
And since when is the Lancer a tactical aircraft? So they don't carry nukes all that often anymore. That's still a strategic bomber far as I'm concerned.
Assuming they can make this work (and on real tactical aircraft like an F-16 or F/A-18) that would indeed be something I didn't expect to see anytime soon, possibly not even within my lifetime.

[Josh]

I suspect altitude is going to factor into those 'not varying much' atmospheric conditions (what with the changing air density and all), as will the speed of the aircraft at the time and, indeed, the weather (fog, clouds, rain etc in the way of the laser=groovy, we can now see the beam. Not so hot from the shooter's perspective, though I admit I don't know how much that will affect the effectiveness of a triple figure KW laser).
And since when is the Lancer a tactical aircraft? So they don't carry nukes all that often anymore. That's still a strategic bomber far as I'm concerned.
Assuming they can make this work (and on real tactical aircraft like an F-16 or F/A-18) that would indeed be something I didn't expect to see anytime soon, possibly not even within my lifetime.

With computer guidance and having speed of light/LOS weaponry, I'd expect that maneuverability of the base platform takes on a lot less relevance.

We're reaching the point where it'll basically be 'if it flies, it dies' that'll drive us fully into the drone era.

[Batman]

I wasn't talking about the maneuverability so much as the fact that a B-1 has a lot more room for something like that. B-1-'This'll take up like half the forward bomb bay'.-'Okay'. F-16? 'This will probably occupy all of your airplane's bomb bay but...'-'Um-Sir? The F-16 doesn't have a bomb bay.'

[Josh]

I wasn't talking about the maneuverability so much as the fact that a B-1 has a lot more room for something like that. B-1-'This'll take up like half the forward bomb bay'.-'Okay'. F-16? 'This will probably occupy all of your airplane's bomb bay but...'-'Um-Sir? The F-16 doesn't have a bomb bay.'

Yeah, but my point is you may not need an F-16 style platform if you can basically put up a sufficient number of these to basically clear the airspace out to the horizon.

Dunno, I'm not in that line of business.

[Batman]

Except a) they basically said they could do it in a fighter size platform and b) since aircraft are somewhat fragile to begin with, what's to stop earthbound installations, which by their very nature have a lot more room to play with, to mount even more powerful lasers to just shoot those planes down?

[rhoenix]

Except a) they basically said they could do it in a fighter size platform and b) since aircraft are somewhat fragile to begin with, what's to stop earthbound installations, which by their very nature have a lot more room to play with, to mount even more powerful lasers to just shoot those planes down?

Ergo why this is quite possibly the end of the Age of Manned Fighter Aircraft, and the beginning of the drone warfare era in earnest.

[Josh]

Because we can target ground-based installations with God Rods.

It's a brave new world.

[rhoenix]

Because we can target ground-based installations with God Rods.

It's a brave new world.

Yeah... kinda hard at present levels to shoot those down with coherent light.

[General Havoc]

I think we have quite a while to wait before we reach the end of the Age of manned fighter aircraft.