Its all a bit Star Wars...

[TSR2]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7531046.stm

[Nigel H-J]

The beam heats up the pressurised fuel tank of the outbound missile and causes it to rupture, destroying the missile.

Not only missiles I'm sure, get a lock-on to an aircraft and very much the same would happen. Dread to think if that should get into the wrong hands. A bit out of 007 there! :o

Nigel.

[SkippyBing]

Nigel,

I remember reading a bit about this a few years back, I think the effect on an ICBM is far more significant than on say an airliner due to the type of fuel used, and the fact it's essentially in space at the time. Basically the rocket fuel is more volatile, plus to get mission kill on an ICBM doesn't necessarily mean killing it in the conventional sense just sending it out of control and letting re-entry burn it up should work, the fail safes on the warhead fuzing would probably prevent an actual explosion at ground level for a nuclear unit (as you'd want if the thing malfunctioned and landed in the launch country shortly after lift off).
Not 100% sure of the effect on an aircraft, but as the tanks generally aren't pressurised (I'm aware of pressure re-fuelling but that's just to cram the stuff in in the first place, once you start burning it that goes away) heating the fuel up would just lead to a bit of expansion and some fuel vapour which the tanks are designed for. You've got the other bonus that being down in the atmosphere there's a lot more attenuation of the laser beam reducing it's power, which is why they put it in a 747 to start with to get it up above the water vapour etc. and maximise the power on target. I'm not saying you couldn't do nasty things to the pilot though.

[Chris Trott]

In addition, an airplane can easily evade the system as it's designed to deal with an object moving in a predictable path (ballistic). There were talks about it being able to deal with Air-to-Air missiles, but they cannot build motors fast enough to move the mirror and refocus it fast enough to deal with an object moving at or away from the plane in a horizontal plane. In addition, the targeting sequence takes something like 10 seconds and the actual "attack" taking another 10 seconds plus. That would result in a very close attempt to disable any air-to-air missile since your flight times are typically under 60 seconds.

[Chris Sykes]

I can remember reading fiction by Dale Brown with a B-52 with an airborne laser in my teens...

[Nigel H-J]

Many thanks for the explanation Skippy, though when you think that over the last 100 years since the Wright Brothers first took to the air and how far we have progressed technically and scientifically, one wonders what the next 100 years will uncover. :o

Regards
Nigel.

[SkippyBing]

Nigel,

no worries, I forgot to add there are plans afoot for a battlefield system that'll fit in a C-130, some details here http://www.defense-update.com/products/a/atl.htm.

I'm assuming the laser is more compact than the one in the 747 (which I think has most of the fueslage isolated from the crew section due to the chemicals etc. in use) but it seems to have a pretty high power output. Of course your best defence is hiding in a cloud.

[jonesey2k]

Red alert! Lock Phasers on target!

[DispatchDragon]

For whatever reason its been spotted at Nellis and at Hickam --

Hickam I could understand as it was probably transitiing to Kwaljalein and the missle range there

But Nellis -- thats interesting - because it might hint at it being tried on aircraft or ground targets

Leif

[Chris Trott]

Nellis has range instrumentation for high altitude stuff. In addition, I wouldn't be surprised if there was something going on that also involved "The Sandbox" (I'll let you guys figure out what that is, though I'm sure it's not hard). And we can't forget about China Lake Naval Air Weapons Center and the stuff they do up there. They've been doing some of the Anti-Missile testing as well.

You'd be surprised how much initial weapons testing goes on out of Nellis too. Everyone thinks it goes on more out of Edwards, but a lot also happens out of Nellis because their ranges are just as (if not more) capable than what Edwards has and Edwards doesn't quite have the same "variety" of terrain under its ranges that can be used for various types of testing.