My program in the news...

[IROC]

I was reading Drudge this morning and saw an article on the program I am working on:

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/laser.htm

This has been a great job. Lots of need design problems to work through. I hope it comes to fruition as this would be a useful weapon.

Mike

[Joeaksa]

Oh my God, you are working on and profiting from a weapon that might be used in the Iraq war??!!!

Rodehard will have kittens and you will be on his "Brown25" list like me! At least you are really working in the defense industry.

Joe A

PS, Keep up the good work, we need more weapons like the one you are working on to stay ahead of the bad guys around the world.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Very cool Mike. Is the laser already developed? I would love to see that in action! What's your role with the project?

[IROC]

The laser has been "developed" in that they have a working scaled-down version right now. We are currently putting together the full-scale version. It's a butt-kicker.

My job was to design the mechanism that deploys the turret (with the optics in it) out of the bottom of the C-130. For those of you familiar with a C-130 - there's very little clearance between the belly of fuselage and the ground, so we have to "deploy" or lower the turret in flight to acquire targets and fire the laser.

Neat stuff.

Mike

[bryanthompson]

War Profiteer!

With that out of the way, good work It sounds like an interesting project.

[dhoward]

Nice job.
Please continue!

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by IROC
The laser has been "developed" in that they have a working scaled-down version right now. We are currently putting together the full-scale version. It's a butt-kicker.

My job was to design the mechanism that deploys the turret (with the optics in it) out of the bottom of the C-130. For those of you familiar with a C-130 - there's very little clearance between the belly of fuselage and the ground, so we have to "deploy" or lower the turret in flight to acquire targets and fire the laser.

Neat stuff.

Mike

Mike,

I remember seeing something like this in a Boeing B747 a few years back, but it was really large and needed a really big airplane to carry everything. Can I ask how the power is generated for the laser? If its classified, just say so but would think that something like that needs a lot of juice. Have seen some "special ops" Herc's with power generator pods on hard points on the wings, might be one way to run it...

Glad to see it be able to fit in a Herc, as that means it can be taken anywhere in the world in a day or so.

Joe A

[IROC]

There is a "sister" project to this called Airborne Laser. It is a larger laser that is mounted in a 747. It is intended to take out ballistic missiles. They are a little ahead of us and are in flight testing right now. They also had a version of this a long time ago that flew on a 707.

The "power" for the laser is actually a chemical reaction, so no electricity is required beyond normal C-130 400Hz AC. The benefit of the chemical laser is that it is very powerful for the relative small size. The drawback is that it uses really nasty chemicals. The power output of the laser is classified, but needless to say it will ruin your day if you happened to get in the way... Of course, that's the intention. :>)

I spent some time up at NAVAIR in Lakehurst, NJ when they were modifying our C-130 and they had some Talons in the hangar at the same time. Neat planes.

Mike

[Joeaksa]

Good deal! Get it up and running so you can test it on something. Then post pics or just let Aviation Leak do it!

Joe A

[Neilk]

Cool!

Small steps... Just think how big and slow the first computers were compared to today. Just apply that to lasers and in 20 years we could have weapons grade lasers on key chains.

[TerryBPP]

Blueprints or ban!

[IROC]

Originally posted by TerryBPP
Blueprints or ban!

Hahaha... I can tell you all about how to deploy and retract a 2700 lb turret out of the bottom of a C-130, but that laser stuff is over my head. :>) I just know the buzz words...

Mike

[Joeaksa]

Mike,

Here is all you need to know!






B-17 Ball turret, the most dangerous place during WW2.

[IROC]

Hey, that's cool. We had the added requirements of extreme stability during flight to stabilize the turret to allow accurate "pointing" during lasing. These optics guys are wizards with this stuff. The tolerances and stability they required was amazing. But then again, you can imagine what even .1 degrees of tilt at 10 miles would do to your accuracy (you'd be about 92 ft off your target). That drove some complexities into my design, needless to say.

Here's a pic of the C-130 being modified to make the turret hole at NAVAIR:



Mike

[Joeaksa]

Mike,

Yea, a .50 cal bullet will only go so far, yet a laser has a range a lot futher. I would assume that its fired only when the plane is on autopilot and the A/P is controlled by the fire control computer.

One touch of the stick or rudder pedals by the pilot and the beam would go up and down or swing side to side, so would think that stability is a must in fire control situations with this puppy. Hope no birds fly into the beam either!

Joe A

[ChrisBennet]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Mike,

Yea, a .50 cal bullet will only go so far, yet a laser has a range a lot futher. I would assume that its fired only when the plane is on autopilot and the A/P is controlled by the fire control computer.

One touch of the stick or rudder pedals by the pilot and the beam would go up and down or swing side to side, so would think that stability is a must in fire control situations with this puppy. Hope no birds fly into the beam either!

Joe A

I was going to say "This thread is useless without pictures!" but you posted some before I could.

I bet the pilot will be able to do whatever he wants flightwise and the laser will track rgw target just like the laser designators for the smart bombs do now.

A buddy of mine is in the industrial laser business. One day the company president's wife brought in an local newpaper article about their company titled "Frikken Laser Beams" (something like that). She was hassling him because she thought (A) They were making fun of the company (B) That my friend somehow had knowledge of and the ability to stop it from being published.
Turns out, neither one of them had ever seen "Austin Powers" ("I want sharks with 'frikken laser beams on their heads!")

-Chris

[Joeaksa]

Chris,

My nephew works for Lockheed. Black stuff, I do not even know what he is working on now and stopped asking a while ago.

He was working on a drone project years ago, like the ones used in Afgan and Iraq now. All TS but I knew the name. Aviation leak published some very good info about the project. I called Tony at home and said "hey, I heard that the Aquila is such and such wide, and tall" and stopped. He replied "Uncle Joe, this is an uncontrolled telephone line and I cannot confirm nor deny anything you have just said" ...

I started laughing and told him about the Aviation Week article and he calmed down a bit but he still could not comment. He is (we all were) under the rules that govern classified information and could care less if its in print or on the internet, we cannot discuss it until its cleared.

These days information is released at certain times by the Govt for a reason. They do it to let the other countries and enemies know something for a reason. Pubs like aviation leak and various newspapers are given information to publish. Hope it scares the hell out of them....

Mike,

Wonder if they would have something like the Cobra helo's where the pilot has a sight on his helmet and the weapon fires where-ever the pilot or gunner is looking? No need to tell us if its classified but that is neat on the helo where the pilot looks at you or something, AND THE CANNON MOVES AND POINTS AT EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE. Always kinda liked that little feature...

JoeA

[onewhippedpuppy]

Does the Cobra have that feature too? I know the Apache does. Pretty scary to see the pilot looking at you, then notice that you're looking down the barrels of the gatling gun.