Security

Laser Jet's Wingmen: Mirrored Drones?

The military may one day manage to get a modified 747 to blast missiles out of the sky, with a real-life energy cannon. But even if the so-called "Airborne Laser," or ABL, functions as promised, it still won’t be all that useful, nay-sayers contend. With a range of a few-hundred miles, it’d take a small […]

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The military may one day manage to get a modified 747 to blast missiles out of the sky, with a real-life energy cannon. But even if the so-called "Airborne Laser," or ABL, functions as promised, it still won't be all that useful, nay-sayers contend. With a range of a few-hundred miles, it'd take a small squadron of the things to cover the world's hotspots. And they'd be sitting ducks for enemy attacks.

Au contraire, answers ABL-maker Boeing. The laser jet would be just fine - especially if it was "accompanied by a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with mirrors," as *Pop Mech's *Erik Sofge reports. The "entirely new combination of lasers and robots — and it may be the answer to critics aiming to dismantle ABL before it ever flies."

The military has kicked around the idea of laser-relaying mirrors since Star Wars' heyday. More recently, the Pentagon pushed a "redirected energy initiative" -- meant to produce a "magic," world-wide ring of laser-directing mirrors which could be used to used to relay communications, supply energy to solar-electric devices, or put smoking holes in the less-than-cooperative.

The effort didn't have robots, however.

These relay UAVs would be harder to spot and more disposable than a 747, and could bounce the high-energy beam onto targets that might otherwise be out of range, or out of the plane's line-of-sight. With multiple flying drones, a single
ABL could cover an exponentially wider area...

Instead of barging into hostile airspace with a full fighter escort, and hoping for a clear shot at any and all enemy missiles, a single ABL could function as a kind of flying laser–artillery piece. The UAVs would act as forward observers, extending the effective range of the system, and finding and targeting threats that might otherwise be obscured or hidden.

But first, the ABL has to have its first test fight. It's due in 2009.

[Photo: USAF via Pop Mech]

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