Base to test laser-shooting planes: Modified aircraft to track, destroy missiles

LA Daily News ^ | Jun 4, 2006 | JIM SKEEN, Staff Writer

[demlosers]

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - "The Right Stuff" is going "Star Wars" as Edwards Air Force Base personnel prepare to test aircraft armed with laser weapons.

Documents made public by the Air Force show base officials are preparing an environmental assessment in preparation for conducting flight and ground tests of aircraft equipped with lasers: up to 140 flight tests and 24 ground tests this year, growing to 394 flight tests with 24 ground tests in 2010.

"Edwards Air Force Base is a cost-effective location for testing different laser technologies because of its facilities, its remote location, and its previous success and use as one of the nation's premier test and evaluation flight test centers," a draft of the environmental assessment stated.

"Thus, to continue providing the Air Force with a highly capable aircraft and aircraft weapons system test and evaluation capability, it is essential that the Air Force Flight Test Center conduct test and evaluation of laser systems."

Testing would be confined to restricted military airspace. Target areas for air-to-ground testing would be limited to five acres in size and there would be no more than 100 acres total designated for such use, the draft environmental assessment said.

Edwards is already hosting one laser program, the Airborne Laser, an aircraft weapon being developed to shoot down ballistic missiles. A unit of about 750 people are working on the program, which uses a significantly modified Boeing 747 fitted with a laser.

Airborne Laser program officials envision future Airborne Laser aircraft patrolling in pairs at more than 40,000 feet and inside friendly territory, scanning the horizon for missiles.

When a missile is detected, a set of lasers will track and illuminate it, and computers will measure the distance and calculate its course and direction.

A second high-energy laser, fired through the nose turret mounted on the aircraft, will destroy the missile. The laser is made up of six modules, each weighing 4,500 pounds and about the size of a sport utility vehicle turned on its end.

The beam will heat an area about the diameter of a basketball on the missile's relatively fragile fuel-tank casing. The laser will weaken metal already under high pressure from the ignited rocket fuel.

Ground tests of the laser were conducted at Edwards over an 11-month period, ending last December with a laser shot long enough and powerful enough that officials said it would have been capable of destroying a ballistic missile.

The Airborne Laser aircraft is now in Kansas being fitted with two illuminator lasers.

The airplane is expected to return to Edwards late this summer or early fall for flight tests to check out the illuminating lasers. The high-energy laser will be installed on the airplane in 2007.

A key milestone for the program will be a test to shoot down a missile in 2008.

Another weapon system reported in the Air Force document is the Advanced Tactical Laser, intended to destroy or disable a target on the ground without hurting buildings or people around it.

Sponsored by the Air Force Special Operations Command, the program is looking to develop a weapon that could fire a narrow beam, about four inches in diameter, with blow-torch-like heat in a "man-made bolt of lightning."

james.skeen@dailynews

[BIGLOOK]

Tricky situation. Don't the lasers have to hit and superheat the fuel cells before they're expended?

[A CA Guy]

Oh you have to remember reading about the space lasers we have. It went far better than the ones we strapped to the back of those turtles.

[Irishguy]

jeeze this is very star trekkie...sorry but what space borne lasers...?? when did that all happen -- i must have missed it!

[A CA Guy]

There were several articles about space lasers regarding us about half a year ago.
It suggested in the couple of articles I read that they were in possession now and were operational.
Capable of burning large areas or assassinating someone from space.

They were in the regular press, not the national enquirer.

[familyop]

That was quick.

Airborne Laser Completes Laser Ground Tests
(December 12, 2005)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1539125/posts

[familyop]

Pinging... You might like to see this.

[Irishguy]

jeeze pretty stunning stuff...

[Irishguy]

really look slike things are hotting up, if you will excuse the pun...

[familyop]

"jeeze pretty stunning stuff..."

With some of the attitudes and alliances growing around this planet, technologies like that will most likely be helpful.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

So in a few years America's premier interceptor could be a 747.

Cool but not sure I want to be on board when they do a victory roll after a kill...

[garbageseeker]

Thanks for the ping. Great stuff huh?

[GAB-1955]

How about putting one on a Global Hawk? Or another UAV? You can fly a mission, shoot a missile down, then switch over to another machine and get a fighter-bomber or two, then log off and go outside and sleep in your own bed. No chance of being a POW and being tortured or "show trials." The NKs and Iranians hate that already.

[finnigan2]

I remember all the leftist academic sneers when Reagan announced research into the so-called "Star Wars" initiative. It was a waste of time, a waste of money, it would never work, ad nauseum.
Now, we have a laser defense which is overly large but workable. As with all developments, miniaturization will come next until a system will be fitted into a much smaller aircraft with even smaller, short range systems fitted into air to air combat planes.
That Reagan, what a fool!

[Millee]

Thanks for the ping JR, cause I've...........been on a plane before so this is right up my alley! ;op

[phantomworker]

That was JR's way of saying how he relates to our luminescence.... ;o)

[JRios1968]

[phantomworker]

Unan1mous Winner is Tarah Smith
While rumors have been circulating that Unan1mous was just one big Joe Schmo type set-up, the show proved to be exactly what it said it was.

[JRios1968]

Uh...what is Unan1mous??

[phantomworker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unan1mous

[JRios1968]

Oh, my...watching a soccer game seems more interesting than that...