USAF LOOKS TOWARD LASER FIGHTERS
COMBAT AIRCRAFT’S REGULAR COLUMN
IN NOVEMBER 2017, the US Air Force Research Laboratory awarded $26.3 million to Lockheed Martin to design and build a laser weapon, known as SHiELD, for fighter aircraft — which the flying branch plans to equip and test on an F-15 Eagle as early as 2021. By the end of the decade, the laser could be flying aboard a totally new stealth fighter known presently as F-X.
The USAF has dreamed of laser weapons to be part of its future fighter fieet for years — and there are many reasons to be skeptical. The radar-evading F-35 Lightning II is consuming the USAF’s budget and is incomplete, sending up a word of caution for any radically new aviation project equipped with risky, in-development weapons. But if there are reasons to be optimistic, it is because the USAF’s Research Laboratory is already working on F-X and SHiELD quietly, and without the massive, sluggish bureaucracy of the F-35 program.
While that means less money for far-out weapons development, it can allow — even require — more thriftiness and experimentation during the research and development phase. Between now and when industry and Air Force Research Laboratory geeks test a laser …
