That reminds me of a Dale Brown book, Flight of the Old Dog namely, which opens with a Soviet laser in eastern Russia blasting an RC-135 out of the sky...
Airborne lasers against planes. The questions is though, what would you shoot down with it? Fighters? Strategic bombers would be easy targets, but, since the introduction of ICBMs, those are a thing of the past.
A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the lineRe: The Boeing YAL laserplane: they've got a variant of this project, the Advanced Tactical Laser
. This time, though, it's intended for use on ground targets.
May I be the first to say: bwuhahahahaha.
Oh yes.
"Hey, I worked on putting a 100 kilowatt laser into a plane and made it work."
I'd figure though that the main problem with lasers in planes is the high energy demand that any substantially powerful laser will have. For the time being, airborne laser weapons will probably be limited to larger airframes.
A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the lineJust read through the Wikipedia page.... okay. Pretty strange way of generating a laser beam. But probably the ideal thing for airborne weapons, it seems.
Ok, so here's my turn on coming up with an interesting link: I saw this thing on TV today and found it pretty interesting: A solar-powered plane designed to fly around the world.
This is Tuefel's most recent odd find of the day. Its pretty cool looking actually.
edited 16th Jun '10 1:54:24 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?The Vulcan is, in my opinion, one of the coolest and most futuristic looking aircraft built — very imposing, and the aerobatics RAF display pilots got out of the big bomber were impressive indeed. Only subsonic, though, despite the look. These were built as the UK's nuclear bombers, but stayed in service through the mid 1980s.
They saw combat use only once, in the "Black Buck" bombing raids on the Argentine-occupied Falkland Islands in 1982. These were 8,000 mile, 16-hour missions, and were the longest combat bombing missions ever at the time; that record was surpassed by USAF B-52s in the 1991 Gulf War.
Amazingly, the bombing radar used in these missions, H 2 S, was the same system used in World War 2 against Germany, though a later version.
A brighter future for a darker age.That bit of Knowledge courtesy of my father a former B-52 pilot.
Another Plane I think is pretty cool.
I just love the look of some of the European planes.
One last Tuefel found thing. The Sky Bolt Air Launched Ballistic Missile
HOLY CRAP. One of the largest missiles possibly carried under wing on a plane ever.
Who watches the watchmen?Ay, Tuefel, just a few months ago I posted saying the Vulcan and Draken were cool...
Great minds think alike, I guess!
Flora Segunda | World Made By Hand | Monster Blood Tattoo ^You should read these series.I'm just going to run through these with my comments:
- Helios: That sort of thing probably has a future, but I can't quite figure where.
- Saab Draken: Cool and unusual looking plane, like a lot of the Saabs. A plastic kit of one, with B-58 Hustler engines stuck onto it was used as a futuristic fighter jet on Thunderbirds once, if I remember that correctly.
- Avro Vulcan: Cool as hell. Also, some impressive low-level flying was done with it in its late days. I can very much recommend the book Vulcan 607 by British author Rowland White, which deals with the first Black Buck strike and the run-up to it. If you also read Sea Harrier Over The Falklands by Lt. Com. Nigel "Sharkey" Ward, the Vulcan story loses some of its impact though...
- Skybolt missile: Quite impressive. And Flanker, if you think only a B-52 could launch it, well, not quite: According to my hilariously outdated "Military Aircraft Of Today" (from the mid 80s), there were considerations to carry Skybolts on an enlarged Vulcan (six of 'em), on Handley Page Victors, or on VC-10 and Trident airliners. Test were actually conducted with two Skybolts on a standard Vulcan.
edited 17th Jun '10 9:35:49 AM by catfish42
A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line

Very interesting. The ALTB is certainly one of the coolest things the US Air Force has done recently. I don't know how useful a huge laser in a large aircraft actually is in the defence against ballistic missiles, but the concept sure sounds good. "Hey, we stuffed a big laser into a 747 and we shoot missiles with it!"
A different shape every step I take A different mind every step of the line