Thanks for posting. I have seen B's at Pax river do rolling landings.

So from the article reagarding the rolling landings: "The simulations suggest we’ll be OK as long as we limit our speed, so we will have a maximum overtake speed. We don’t know what that will be yet but it is on the order of 40 kt.”

So my read is if they have 25 knots over the deck, and 40 knots overtake speed, true airspeed would be around 65 knots. Seems reasonable to get some lift. Looks like the QE2 will have a good amount of run out space.

“The aircraft does well at slow speed because of the amount of lift you get off the wing. You are getting 1,000s of pounds of lift at speeds you would drive your car at.”

Laser weapons on a ship are doable, albeit they are a work very much in progress.

The same sort of weapon on a fighter won't be a BVR type requirement, but a "dogfighting" requirement that yields a gun with a much faster bullet hitting ... what? ... on the target. If and only if the power/heat/weight problem is resolved.

F-35 has a host of far more pressing issues to address before advancing into the Starfighter II role. The original Starfighter was the F-104. :}

Slight topic drift about lasers as airborne weapons.
I had heard about this program's demise, but thanks to that link I can put it in my timeline. (Scientist's rant on military laser funding ... axe to grind is funding ... but his points on the challenges are well made). BFI has been dead longer than I had supposed. You have no idea how many Ballistic Missile Defense meetings and conferences I attended where we got worn out by USAF enthusiasm for the North Korean ballistic missiles being knocked out by a 747 carrying a laser in the boost phase. :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Thankful that is over. The JSF is now the high tech money sink.

Lonewolf_50, They recently made public that they are using the C130 and B1 as platform test beds. They are due to be now testings at White sands, a mid power 150kw laser.

High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS)

About as much credence as a LM press release or "aircrew" briefing...:}

First off how did this thread become a laser thread? Second, since this is a DARPA program we are talking about it is “bleeding edge” technology that is a ways off from an operational system. And the testing is a “Ground-based test that was expected to begin in summer 2015 which AFAIK hasn’t started yet.

Finally, consider the many issues of installing a laser capable of being used as a weapon on ANY fighter and you run into a lot of integration issues. On signature driven platform the issues increase. For example what type of aperture would be used to replace the rotating turret used to date on airborne platforms?

As has been suggested by several folks, let’s please get back to reality on this thread.

Oh, a1bill, you do love to go on about it.

Just to keep you happy, here's the latest miniature Australian death-Ray laser ready to slot into the F-35. Tiny, isn't it?

http://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/img1.jpg

One hell of a Celestron SCT mount a1...

eh?
 

Genuine question; is there a reason you're all using 'l@ser' instead of 'laser'??:confused:

My thoughts too. Everyone knows it should be "#laser".

Same reason as you are, emitex.

The site changes it to avoid googles leading laser enthusiasts finding there way here. Clearly didn't work, eh?

Least not when it's in inverted commas..

Right, I'll be back in my box.

Which one is that CM?
This is the 10 year old ozdricm pod that was tested on a lear jet.

http://i59.tinypic.com/6dqy5j.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/2eyucrk.png

7 videos from the 2015 directed energy summit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqAZ...QaB7dG5EioPObV

there is also a PDFs on it in this thread
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=27171

New thread title required. Death Ray Cancelled, then what? :ugh:

Why is this thread still being cluttered by attempts to conflate HEL and DIRCM?

DIRCM l@sers are about the size of a hardback book, because they have to fit along with a tracking camera into the small turrets you see attached to a C-17.

http://media.defenceindustrydaily.co...on_C-17_lg.jpg

They have a power output at best in the low tens of watts.

HEL starts at 10 kW, which I think everyone understands is three orders of magnitude difference. Some claim that you can knock down a plastic mini-drone at a few kilometers with that much power. So far, airborne systems designed for counter-surface or counter-missile roles are considered generally viable at 100-150 kW and upward, or 10000 TIMES the output of a DIRCM.

Babbling about demonstrator DIRCMs is pure timewasting.

LO,

But surely this entire thread, all 7,800 odd comments, could be considered "pure timewasting". :ok:

I'll believe Boost Phase Intercept is real when they can actually make it work. A few more breakthroughs needed, and no, not quite small enough to fit onto an F-35 Lightning II. I concur with Mach Two and suggest that you move this discussion into a new thread called "Death Ray Cancelled, then what" so that our usual bun fight over the F-35 returns to its correct envelope of combined piss taking and program review.

Wolf, :D:D:D:D:D

Don't worry Chaps ... By the time the F-35 becomes fully operational Photon-Torpedoes will be de rigueur :E

I'll get my coat ...

Lonewolf_50, They are saying that some of the missile defense will be on a UAV and they have a gen 3 laser that will be a UAV. (2015 summit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqAZ...QaB7dG5EioPObV )
General Atomics: Third-Gen Electric Laser Weapon Now Ready | Technology content from Aviation Week


http://i58.tinypic.com/sovkfk.jpg

http://aviationweek.com/defense/usaf...ers-ready-2020
USAF: Tactical Lasers Ready By 2020



LO:Why is this thread still being cluttered by attempts to conflate HEL and DIRCM.

although they are saying that the 2 will be combined and only have one system, It's just the tech used in both HEL and OZDIRCM are next gen optical fiber that I was initially answering to glad rag. They are far different to the "book' sized mirror DRICM you seem to be referring to.

a1bill, the article cites a test on the Paul F Foster to be done in 2018: I once landed my helicopter on the Paul F Foster. It once fired Tomahawks into Iraq, during Desert Storm, but I wasn't on it then. The system for that test is a shipboard system. The UAV based system is still proposed, which doesn't address the non-trivial systems integration problem for F-35: can they make the bugger small enough to fit it into the correct niche of the Lightning II?

F-35 has plenty of other weapons systems, and associated software, to properly integrate and get working before Buck F:mad:ing Rogers puts on that lovely helmet and flies about with a laser weapon.

Once the test on the Paul F Foster, in three years, is completed we can revisit this topic in this thread. Until then, can we please get back to the Phunky Phiphth Gen Phighter we've been talking about in this thread?