Comments on: Laser gunship hits $30 million bulls-eye

Aircraft maker Boeing says it has won a contract to bring the Advanced Tactical Laser aircraft, a smaller sibling of the Airborne Laser 747, closer to joining the Air Force arsenal.

[generalripper]

All I want is AC-130's with frickin' laser beams attached to their fuselages!

[gjkezski]

Only real problem with that is the 6 tons taken up by the laser, I have no idea of the volume it takes up. The AC-130 [a WONDERFUL aircraft, take it from a 10yr grunt! ] is pretty well full as it is with the existing weapons, ammo & sighting systems. Maybe if the USAF would pull out of mothballs one of those "Atomic Aircraft" reactors they worked on back in the '50s that were never powerful enough to actually power an aircraft it might actually be enough to power a laser. It did not require a massive cooling system, I think NASA used a descendant of one to power the Lunar Lander for the Apollo program. Rig one up with a bank of capacitors to store the power needed for each shot if the reactor did not provide enough immediate power for each shot. Maybe they could save internal volume by installing the capacitors into containers that could be attached to the hard points normally used for the long-range drop tanks.

How About It Flyboys??

[Michichael]

Yeah high power lasers are anything but silent, as noted in the article - it's not creating a lightning effect, but it will cause ionization and small plasma 'bubbles" in the atmosphere - which, if they don't dissipate immediately (depends on the location where it was fired) could react much like the Northern Lights - particle fluctuation causing dancing lights in the atmosphere in their wakes, but also the heat generated could create small portions in the atmosphere that "pop" like bubble wrap - think rapid fire, small thunderclaps.

So you'd have Flash, pop, and flashes! Fun.

[Scott Gardener]

About fricking time! How long has sci-fi talked about cool-looking laser weapons? For years we've had lasers that sight for other weapons, lasers for gathering meteorological data, and even ones to help with PowerPoint presentations. Heck, my computer has a laser in its mouse and another in its DVD drive. But now, finally, we have lasers that can actually blast stuff!

And, it comes with sparkly ILM-style special effects? What more could a geek want? OK, warp drive and a teleporter, but what else?

[searcherT]

I am a big big fan of the armed services and a tech head too. However I must say the use of a high powered chem laser for ground attack at this point in the game is at the least an act of stupidity and at the far end show nothing but contempt for the American wallet. There are other direct energy weapons that ar smaller and far more powerful with seemingly limitless area for refining and quantum leaps in power capability. a laser depends on the capability to heat a single point and damage through heat build up.. Works now, but what about when some smart ass successfully develops a material with limitless capacity to not allow energy accumulation as heat. then it is useless as a primary weapon. ( why do you think star fleet uses a phaser and tje Dominion use a phased polaron beam.

think before wasting our money or insulting the intellect of the internet citizens