Sign In
Search
Air Force

Air Force Years Away From Flying Laser Weapons

Dan Parsons By
SHARE:
Air Force Years Away From Flying Laser Weapons
An AC-130. Photo: U.S. Air Force

The United States. military has long wanted to mount directed energy weapons like lasers on aircraft to perform various missions currently done with old fashioned guns and missiles, but it could be up to a decade or longer before the systems are scaled to fly and powerful enough to destroy targets.The Air Force in 2007 mounted a chemical oxygen-iodine laser aboard a Boeing [BA] 747-400 that was tested as a defense against inbound ballistic missiles. Funding was cut three years…

Subscriber-only content. Please log in below.

Not a subscriber or registered user yet?

Please contact us at clientservices@accessintel.com or call us at 888-707-5814 (Monday – Thursday 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. and Friday 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET.), to start a free trial, get pricing information, order a reprint, or post an article link on your website.

Recommended

Air Force

Two AGM-190As Fired Recently in AFRICOM, LRIP for 45 Underway

Defense Watch

Defense Watch: X-Bat Collab in Poland, German F-35, DAF Battle Network

Advanced / Transformational Technology

Army To Field Joint Laser Weapon System By July 2028, Pentagon’s Critical Tech Lead Says

Defense Watch

Defense Watch: Air, Space & Cyber, Poland Loans, Argentina FMS

Trending

USAF, Northrop Detail Sentinel ICBM ‘Vertical Stacking’ Demo, On Track For Flight Tests In 2027
Meink: U.S. Has Orbital Space Weapons, SB-AMTI To Launch This Month, 500 CCAs by 2032
Skunk Works Plans First Flight of Vectis Prototype By End of Next Year
Pentagon Wants AI System to Understand and Predict Space Threats
AEVEX Completes $600 Million Acquisition Of USV Manufacturer BlackSea

Congress Updates

Congress

CBO Estimates Loss of One-Half to Two-Thirds of U.S. Missile Interceptors Since June Last Year

A new Congressional Budget Office report estimates the cost of the Iran war through Aug. 1 as $38 billion and says that the U.S. has likely depleted between one-half and […]

Missile Defense

Fischer Says Golden Dome Boosters Need To Increase Capitol Hill Support With Information, Warns Against Counting On Reconciliation

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – A Senate Armed Services panel chair today said boosters of the Golden Dome program still have work to do to increase support on Capitol Hill while […]

Navy/USMC

HII Executive Outlines Its Shipbuilding Acceleration Strategy

An HII [HII] shipbuilding executive last week told lawmakers how the company plans to improve and accelerate shipbuilding throughout via workforce improvements, adding new shipbuilding infrastructure and reinforcing distributed shipbuilding […]

Congress

House Sends Dec. 11 CR With Ship Construction Funds To Trump’s Desk For Final Signature

The House on Tuesday passed a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open through Dec. 11, sending the temporary funding measure that also includes funds to support ongoing shipbuilding […]

The Force Multipliers

Force Multipliers

Michael Harrison – SANS Institute

Force Multipliers

Michael DiOrio – Dataminr

Force Multipliers

Arne Brinck – Dark Wolf Solutions

Force Multipliers

Jags Kandasamy – Latent AI

Job Feed

Post a Job // Post a Resume