Lockheed Martin To Build High-Energy Airborne Laser For Fighter Planes (newatlas.com) 80
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.
Re:26 millions? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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If you were to say that out loud, would your face hurt?
Re:26 millions? (Score:5, Interesting)
26 million is the camel's nose.
For reference look at the F-35 [cnn.com].
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.
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almost twice the initial estimate
That's not bad...
but yeah, 26 mil is nothing, barely covers a single CEO's yearly bonus... eh, such is life
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'Energy fighting' has been air combat doctrine since WW2. They didn't furball with the zeros then. High speed pass after high speed pass is how they won air battles.
It always has been about how the airplanes stacked up against each other. If in the faster plane, carrying more energy (speed and alt), pilots don't engage unless they have the advantage. Even in the slower, pilots can usually break off and end the fight. Dive for the deck and get lost in the ground clutter.
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almost twice the initial estimate.
That is good. They normal rule of thumb for DoD projects is triple.
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26 million is the camel's nose.
For reference look at the F-35 [cnn.com].
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.
Personally I place the blame for the F35 on the planners rather than Lockheed Martin. The project wanted too many different roles and objectives from a single aircraft. Of course LM obliged and they had the age old dilemma of Capable, Cheap or Possible, pick any two.
That being said, there isn't a production fighter available today that would be suitable in an all out war. They're all too expensive, too complex and take too long to produce. How long would the UK's current stock of Eurofighters and F35's l
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I agree with you and this touches on a point I have considered since way back.
I was born in 1945 and by the time I was able to understand stuff around me, WWII was still a huge thing. I'm talking about ca. 1955.
My daddy was in the Army Air Corps, changed to Air Force after the War.
As a kid, I was familiar with the state of the art of combat and supply aircraft of that time.
Fucking fighter jets, aircraft carriers and certainly tanks, are all old school.
John McCain says the last F-35 will ship in 2040, by whi
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Assume you mean personyears.
If you mean ten or twenty people for four years, that's very very optimistic from a defense contractor. Or your assuming they're just generating paper.
I'd assume this is paying for one person with a good idea, a _small_ engineering team, support staff and funding to build a prototype.
The big question is... (Score:3)
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In Soviet Russia, shark jumps you!
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Planes with frickin' laser beams (Score:2)
Until the burned off? (Score:1)
For space battles, the laser weapon is a decent plot device. If you ignore the energy requirements and mass of equipment, the laser solves issues with mass for projectiles and momentum. But in real life we can't ignore energy requirements, the large mass of the unit, and the limited energy density delivered.
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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?
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Just for clarity, if you develop the holy grail of laser systems (i.e. a small, omni-directional, computer targeting, rapid fire, efficient laser that can destroy 1 target per second with a range of 10km) SAM and other large, long range weapons become meaningless, because they get shot down 10km away from the plane, and only direct, rapid fire kinetic weapons (like bullets) and other laser systems are a threat to a laser equipped plane in the air, but again, the source of those threats (like other planes) i
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The laser beam would presumably pass through some kind of optical turret, which can track a moving target.
Or a real genius [wikipedia.org] could use it for a huge tin of popcorn [youtube.com] in their professor's house.
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All they need to do is lock onto the portion of the cockpit that contains the pilot's head. Every airplane has that in the same, easily identifiable location.
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Does anybody else see a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The problem is design by committee not Lockheed (Score:3, Interesting)
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 internati
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I think it was financially sensible to decide to build a single fighter bomber for air force and for aircraft carriers. France, Russia, and China have developed carrier versions of their fighter jets with minimal modifications. What ruined the JSF project was the requirement that the same air-frame should be used in a VTOL aircraft. The result of the VTOL requirement was that the F-35A and F-35C ended up being significantly compromised and ended up with aerodynamics of a flying soap bar.
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F-104 was a fair weather airplane. Nice to fly in California, not so nice in Germany.
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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.
I'm thinking Lockheed is a different company now than what it was back then, it is now LockMart. Also the country as a whole is different, much less manufacturing industrial base. However, the concept of having a single all-in-one airplane probably not practical. Astronaut Michael Collins wrote about the F111 with car analogy a vehicle that dad can commute to work, mom use it taking the kids to school and go shopping, same car can also be used as a cement truck, and race the Daytona 500 on the weekends. Go
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Ha! "...from inside a repair facility". You kiiill me.
the definition of insanity (Score:1)
So..... They couldn't build one that could shoot down an ICBM in its boost phase the size of a 747 but they think they can build ones 15 times smaller that can shoot much smaller targets? I realize that they probably intend much shorter engagement distances but I don't think anyone's demonstrated an effective ground based laser weapons system yet let alone an airborne one one. Most of the ones I've seen are only good at melting gas tanks on stationary/slow moving vehicles at about a mile. It might be goo
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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... [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
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I think its more like the definition of welfare...
Got to make sure all of those bureaucrats at AFRL with outdated skills can justify their ridiculous over compensation.
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That 747 project was started a long time ago. Technology has advanced.
The US army has a vehicle mounted laser system that can shoot down artillery shells in flight. And that's 15 years old or so too.
Mirrors (Score:1)
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would not work since it would be a nightmare to make a mirror that does not reflect RADAR and won't get dusty about 5 seconds after it leaves the hanger.
plus even if you reflected 95% of the energy that 5% would add up quickly (plus all it would take is to include a MASS DRIVER in with the battery to ruin the mirror)
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God Save America (Score:1)
Lockheed Martin is the company that is building the F35.
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Means they are good at extracting maximum money fro taxpayers whilst not delivering anything good.
Perfect MIC contractor.
Still no money for healthcare (Score:1)
You yanks are fucked.
Photonic Cohesion If Target Is Missed? (Score:2)
What is the outcome of that photonic energy if the beam misses? What are the technical issues/dangers of such a situation? Could a man out standing in his field suddenly be vivisected by an errant beam? What if the streams cross, dammit?!!
Just use a laser pointer (Score:1)
Re: Just use a laser pointer (Score:1)
Because blinding enemy combatants is against the rules of war, whereas burning their plane so they fall out of the sky isnâ(TM)t.
War is a gentlemanâ(TM)s game, you know.
limitations... (Score:2)
1) The target had to be stationary. The laser just couldn't
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A couple of points:
Not sure where you are from, but in the real world, airplanes are tissue paper compared to ground vehicles. Unless you are talking about the SR71 blackbird, that had titanium leading surfaces to handle the air friction at high mach number, most conventional planes, including military aircraft, are skinned in either aluminum sheet metal or carbon fiber composite and are not designed to stop any kind of fire. Their key defense is in not getting hit and some level or redundancy if they do
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But the mechanisms that operate the control surfaces are surprisingly beefy. A fighter aircraft aileron has to deal with air pressure measured in tons. Moving a roughl
get back to me (Score:2)
Lockheed, get back to me when your ground-based ATHENA system can shoot down a multi-Mach Soviet aircraft that can pull more than seven Gs.
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Um, one solution is to bait/trick them into flying directly at you... Just shoot fast.
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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
Will it work? (Score:2)
Or will they just build it?
Great, this is a nuisance. (Score:2)
Now I have to design my combat drones to survive loss of flight controls surfaces.
So I'll build them as flying wings with tails and tailplanes, and let the software figure out how to fly them without a tail when it's damaged/gone.
Same with either wing, or the nose cone. This is becoming a Black Knight fight. Such a nuisance. All this to get a few pounds of explosives on target. Arg!
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Get back to me when your software figures out how to fly without your engine, since that is what this laser is targeting. This is not a Hollywood "blow up the plane" weapon, this thing burns through your engine and once the outer casing/bearings fail on a jet engine, the engine it'self will usually tear the plane apart, especially if it is centrally located, as with most fighter jets the world over.
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FTFS:
" 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."
Just pointing out that the summary quoted this. If you can target the engine, I'll shield it and make a point source of heat or apparent exhaust towed off the back and take my chances with your optical targeting sy