The Navy wants lasers to shoot down drones and missiles, but its ships lack the power to fire them
2019/12/05
Unfortunately, this power management issue will only become more pronounced as the Navy develops even more powerful and power-hungry lasers over the next several years. The HELIOS system is only 60 kW, and the Navy wants to ramp up the power to 300 kW on future lasers so that they can burn through the nose cones of enemy cruise missiles, the report said.
The nose cones on supersonic cruise missiles, reinforced to survive the heat of friction with the air, make those missiles largely immune to dead-on laser strikes in the 60 kW to 150kW range, the report said.
>A few years ago, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots ran a flight test comparison of the F6F-5, FG-1D (Goodyear F4U), P-47D-40 and P-51D. Chief test pilot was John Ellis of Kal-Aero. Other pilots also participated.
>AIR-TO-AIR TRACKING 210 KIAS at 10,000 ft. (straight & level into a 3g turn to the left building to 4g followed by a hard reversal into a 4g right turn.) FG-1 best, followed by P-47, F6F and, trailing badly, the P-51. Lateral corrections in the P-51 were difficult thanks to the very high stick forces.
The Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST ("Quiet Supersonic Transport") is an American experimental supersonic aircraft being developed at Skunk Works for NASA's Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program.[3] Preliminary design started in February 2016, with the X-59 scheduled for delivery in late 2021 for flight tests from 2022. It is expected to cruise at Mach 1.42 (1,510 km/h; 937 mph) and 55,000 ft (16,800 m), creating a low 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB) thump to evaluate supersonic transport acceptability.
根據美國軍事網站《Military.com》報導,美國空軍全球打擊司令部(Air Force Global Strike Command,AFGSC)發言人法加德(David Faggard)中校表示,B-1B被設計用於執行多種轟炸任務,其中B-1B擁有低空地形追蹤能力(TERFLW),能利用雷達搜索死角,低空飛過敵對國家防空網,低空地形追蹤能力便是在冷戰時期因應蘇聯而生,而在近20年來,B-1B也一直在反恐戰爭中為地面友軍提供非原始設計的空中密接支援,雖能達成任務但也讓機身承受額外壓力,加劇機身結構金屬疲勞。