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The US Military Orders Up a Side of Lasers with Their Airplanes

January 28, 2013 at 10:19 AM | by | Comments (0)

This kind of technology probably isn’t coming to the Boeing 787 anytime soon, because after all they kind of have plenty of issues to work out with their current technology. All kidding aside, this stuff is more geared toward the military, but who knows if it could eventually land aboard commercial aircraft in the future. We’re talking about lasers—the ones that go "pew pew"—and they could be attached to military planes before too long.

It might be straight out of your favorite science fiction movie, but it looks like lasers on planes are chugging along to becoming a reality. We know virtually nothing about lasers, but we’ll fill you in with what the news knows. It’s the Navy and Air Force behind the new venture, as they’re going to test out some liquid-cooled, solid-state lasers in airplanes. They won’t be blasting bad guys back on the ground, but they will be used to intercept stuff shooting up into the air from bad guys on the ground. Think surface-to-air missiles and other not-so-friendly stuff like that.

There’s a couple flavors of lasers, like Hellads—made by the smarty-pants people over at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. Lockheed Martin—they love making military stuff—is also testing out something new as well, and they’re referring to their model as Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control—just in case you want to add it to your Christmas list. It’s pretty much full speed ahead when it comes to lasers in the airplanes with an in-air goal of 2014, so stay on your best behavior.

[Photo: FastLizard4]

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