Boeing Testing Another Powerful Airborne Laser

Published January 13, 2015

It's gonna fly, and hopefully it's gonna fry too.

Boeing has installed a high-powered laser weapon aboard a C-130H airplane and will spend the next few months testing the 12,000-pound system, according to a report posted on the Network World Web site.

The chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) laser, which uses the infrared part of the light spectrum and would not be visible to human eyes, has been mounted in a rotating turret in the C-130's belly and will be fired against dummy targets on the ground.

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It draws its huge power from a violent chemical reaction between iodine, chlorine, hydrogen peroxide and potassium, which explodes at nearly supersonic speeds and generates about a megawatt — one million watts — of energy.

"The Advanced Tactical Laser can produce a four-inch-diameter beam of energy that can slice through metal from a distance of 9 miles," states a report on GlobalSecurity.org.

The resulting laser beam would be used by the military to damage and weaken enemy ground installations rapidly and without collateral damage.

The program is a sibling of Boeing's Airborne Laser program, already in testing, in which a similarly high-powered laser is mounted in a vertically mounted turret on the nose of a 747. That weapon is designed to shoot down tactical ballistic missiles already in flight.

• Click here for Network World's report, and here to read a primer on the Advanced Tactical Laser at GlobalSecurity.org.

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