SOFIC NEWS: Purpose to Fireplace Laser Weapon from Particular Ops Gunship Nonetheless Alive
AC-130J
Air Power picture
TAMPA, Florida — Seven years after asserting its intention to fireside a high-energy laser weapon from one in every of its Ghostrider gunships, Particular Operations Command executives mentioned work continues to be ongoing.
Experiments are nonetheless within the floor part, Wealthy Rodriguez, technical director at SOCOM’s program government office-fixed wing, mentioned Could 18 on the Particular Operations Forces Trade Convention, organized by the Nationwide Protection Industrial Affiliation.
“We’re really performing some integration on the subsystem stage. We’re nonetheless doing floor testing and haven’t put it on a platform but,” Rodriguez mentioned. A floor check ought to occur in a “couple months,” he added.
SOCOM’s Program Government Officer for Mounted Wing Air Power Col. Ken Keubler mentioned. “We’re persevering with to ship floor exams this 12 months, and if we’re profitable we are going to put that on a platform as quickly as doable.”
Keubler’s predecessor at PEO Mounted Wing, Air Power Col. Melissa Johnson, mentioned on the 2020 Digital SOFIC that this system was on schedule to check the potential from an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship by 2022. SOCOM on the time had been working with the Naval Floor Warfare Middle in Dahlgren on research and floor exams for a 60 kilowatt weapon.
Air Power Particular Operations Command Commander Lt. Gen. Bradly Heitholt first proposed the experiment in 2015.
The U.S. navy has been wanting into laser weapons for some seven a long time, and a few of that work is lastly coming to fruition with the Navy’s Excessive Vitality Laser and Optical-dazzler and Surveillance program transferring ahead with programs being built-in on destroyers.
The Army additionally continues to experiment with lasers mounted on floor automobiles which might be highly effective sufficient to destroy helicopters and unmanned aerial automobiles.
As for lasers aboard plane, the Airborne Laser program — a Missile Protection Company program — was canceled in 2012 as a result of excessive prices and technical issues.
Matters: Particular Operations
