TAKING A LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES
COMBAT AIRCRAFT’S REGULAR COLUMN
BYBY ROBERT BECKHUSEN ROBERT BECKHUSEN
USAF LOOKS TOWARD
LASER FIGHTERS
I
N NOVEMBER 2017, the US Air
Force Research Laboratory
awarded $26.3 million to
Lockheed Martin to design and
build a laser weapon, known as
SHiELD, for ghter aircraft —
which the ying branch plans to equip
and test on an F-15 Eagle as early as- By the end of the decade, the laser
could be ying aboard a totally new
stealth ghter known presently as F-X.
The USAF has dreamed of laser weapons
to be part of its future ghter eet for
years — and there are many reasons
to be skeptical. The radar-evading F-35
Lightning II is consuming the USAF’s
budget and is incomplete, sending up
a word of caution for any radically new
aviation project equipped with risky,
in-development weapons. But if there
are reasons to be optimistic, it is because
the USAF’s Research Laboratory is already
working on F-X and SHiELD quietly, and
without the massive, sluggish bureaucracy
of the F-35 program.
While that means less money for far-out
weapons development, it can allow —
even require — more thriftiness and
experimentation during the research and
development phase. Between now and
when industry and Air Force Research
Laboratory geeks test a laser weapon
aboard a ghter, scientists plan to try out
experimental lasers aboard B-52 bombers
and AC-130 gunships.
There are several more conceivable
possibilities. In June 2017, the US Army
tested a Raytheon laser pod attached to
an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter which
then blasted an unmanned, stationary
target. Even transport planes or refueling
aircraft could possibly — perhaps most
likely — receive defensive lasers given the
increasing threat from high-speed Chinese
and Russian ghters that could go after
the USAF’s logistical backbone.
The SHiELD program is actually three
programs wrapped into one, each
with a di erent contractor. There is
the aforementioned LANCE, or Laser
Advancements for Next-generation
Compact Environments, conducted by
Lockheed Martin. There is STRAFE, or
SHiELD Turret Research in Aero E ects,
which is a Northrop Grumman project
aiming to build a moving, turreted
control system. Finally there is LPRD —
or Laser Pod Research & Development
— from Boeing, which will be the
detachable pod carrying the laser aboard
an aircraft.
Put all three together — the LANCE
laser, STRAFE turret and LPRD pod —
and the USAF has the ingredients for an
airborne laser weapon for its ghter eet.
And it’s easy to
understand
why the
ying branch
tapped Lockheed
to develop LANCE. In
August 2017, a ground-
based prototype laser
weapon built by Lockheed took
aim and fried the empennages of
ve, small MQM-170 Outlaw target
drones — sending all of them crashing
toward the ground — at White
Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
The testers also used the laser
to destroy a truck engine
through its hood.
The laser
weapon used in
the test, the Advanced Test High Energy
Asset, or ATHENA, emits 30kW of power
and can move, track and engage a variety
of ying targets. As a ber laser, a type of
solid-state laser, ATHENA is comprised of
rare earth elements inserted into a glassy
solid material to generate greater power
in a smaller package than gas- or liquid-powered lasers which the military has
experimented with for decades.
One of the most famous examples
of a chemical laser weapon was the
Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser, based on
a 747-400F air freighter. The Pentagon
canceled the project — designed to
zap ballistic missiles during their boost
phase — after spending more than
$5 billion. Solid-state lasers, not the
YAL-1’s chemical laser, now comprise the
most promising US military weapons
prototypes.
In fact, the ATHENA test in August
was part of the SHiELD program’s rst
stage, with ATHENA serving as a stand-in
demonstrator weapon, according to a
December 2016 brie ng obtained by
the military technology website The War
Zone. It won’t be until 2021 or 2022 that
the second stage of the program beginsJanuary 201824
http://www.combataircraft.net2424
24-26 The Briefing C.indd 24 23/11/2017 11:54