Real lasers shooting down real planes!

[spadgy]

It's really happening! A few more years and Dodonpachi will count as non-fiction.

Here's a video of a new laser weapon in action, taking out an unmanned plane on the BBC News website.

Take that you fucker!

[Skykid]

Sweet. They just need to get some laser cannons mounted on the planes themselves.

Not sure how they'll overcome the invisibility thing, I like my laser beams visible.

[GaijinPunch]

Max Chain: 1

That looked like an episode of The Twilight Zone. The original.

[Dragoforce]

The time it took to shoot down the plane makes me wonder if there is some milking involved.

[1up]

The time it took to shoot down the plane makes me wonder if there is some milking involved.

lol

[ZOM]

Where's ma pew-pew sfx?

The time it took to shoot down the plane makes me wonder if there is some milking involved.

haha yeah, looked like NOSE LAVAGGHIN milking.

[Ed Oscuro]

Lasers have been able to take out planes for ages.

Lasers kill cameras, eyes, and so on.

[Skykid]

The time it took to shoot down the plane makes me wonder if there is some milking involved.

Lol, legendary.

[Daigohji]

The beam needs to be wider and have a dragon's head on the end.

[spadgy]

Lasers have been able to take out planes for ages.

Apparently so, but only impractically massive, fuel-hungry chemical lasers with little to no practical military purpose (I'll admit here my knowledge on this is very 'layman'.). The above, however, is a solid state laser you count mount on a ship in a real battle situation, and there's a video!

I agree with Skykid though. It needs to be visible. And maybe bright pink or neon blue.

[Warp_Rattler]

Lasers, schmasers. Call me when they do something impressive, like bullet-cancelling bombs.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

That plane should of used its Alpha beam for maximum retaliation.

[BIL]

Thanks for those links Ed, very interesting.

CLASS 3 AND ABOVE LASERS BLIND PEOPLE IF USED IN AN UNSAFE MANOR - FACT!!!

Fuck me, time to get the building inspectors around!

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Lasers kill cameras, eyes, and so on.

When I was an intern at a Cisco shop, we had a new Catalyst 6509e switch come in. I was a noob at the time and stupid enough to take the safety covers off the 10Gbps modules to peek at the laser...

Luckily the interfaces were shutdown and one of the senior engineers made a comment about what an idiot I was. The point is that never look straight into a laser. Especially, if it has a warning label telling you not to.

[Skykid]

Spadgy, totally off topic, but you do realise Cave have gone and made Progear 2 right? Our prayers have been answered mate!

[ROBOTRON]

Wow...just wow. I remember Tesla or one of those smart guys talking about weapons like this (back in the early 1900's), but was not sure I'd ever see one in my lifetime. Actually, I thought the particle beam weapon would become used for shooting down planes, etc. first, but it looks like I was wrong.

Lord...I hope terrorist never get a hold of something like this.

[Ed Oscuro]

Lasers have been able to take out planes for ages.

Apparently so, but only impractically massive, fuel-hungry chemical lasers with little to no practical military purpose

Not sure this reply suggests you took a look at my link...If there's a pilot or even sensors, any little light-show laser may be able to bring it down. In the case of the pilot, they can't see. In the case of sensors, they might be damaged enough to do the same. (It's fiction, and fictitious fiction, but using a laser dazzler to bring down planes is a plot element in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor," the 1994 book which also is thought to predict or at least prefigure the use of commercial airplanes as bombs - that time a 747 into the Capitol building, instead of the White House / WTC / Pentagon).

I remember Tesla or one of those smart guys talking about weapons like this (back in the early 1900's), but was not sure I'd ever see one in my lifetime.

Man you're old!

p.s. Tesla was more into earthquake machines (so the rumor goes) and radio / electromagnetic waves, not so much particle / photon beams that I know of.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On a related note, the U.S. military has developed a special laser gun prototype that if it is used on a human being, the subject will feel a sensation of his or her skin is on fire when in reality, it is not. This type of "non-lethal" weapon hasn't been implemented in the U.S. military's weaponry cache yet but is on the back-burner. Makes you wonder what other secret prototype weaponry is being developed for the U.S. government/military? Of course, your tax dollars funds this stuff whether you like it or not, it's a given. Not to mention that Israel's government/military has developed special weaponry in the fight against terrorism and it works like it's suppose to (i.e. -- in close combat quarters senarios/situations -- gotta gain the upper-hand against the enemy in a super heated fire-fight with the right weaponry and tactics overall).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ROBOTRON]

Lasers have been able to take out planes for ages.

Apparently so, but only impractically massive, fuel-hungry chemical lasers with little to no practical military purpose

Not sure this reply suggests you took a look at my link...If there's a pilot or even sensors, any little light-show laser may be able to bring it down. In the case of the pilot, they can't see. In the case of sensors, they might be damaged enough to do the same. (It's fiction, and fictitious fiction, but using a laser dazzler to bring down planes is a plot element in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor," the 1994 book which also is thought to predict or at least prefigure the use of commercial airplanes as bombs - that time a 747 into the Capitol building, instead of the White House / WTC / Pentagon).

I remember Tesla or one of those smart guys talking about weapons like this (back in the early 1900's), but was not sure I'd ever see one in my lifetime.

Man you're old!

p.s. Tesla was more into earthquake machines (so the rumor goes) and radio / electromagnetic waves, not so much particle / photon beams that I know of.

I'm in my 40's....ready for the glue factory...but I think it was Tesla that drew up plans for a Death Ray...I think he called it.

[Octopod]

I'll be impressed when we have lazer pistols.

[ROBOTRON]

I'll be impressed when we have lazer pistols.

INDEED.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Or them lazer blasters from the classic Star Wars trilogy films or even phazers (with the famous "stun" feature) from the classic old-school Star Trek series would be welcome.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[GaijinPunch]

[Finger quotes] "LASER"

[greg]

Interesting. Wired Magazine just had an article on failed future predictions that have yet to come to life. The article said that although these lasers do exist, they pose quite a threat to the crews manning the laser gun batteries because if the laser is struck, it's pretty dangerous. The chemical lasers use some sort of mixture of dangerous materials to produce the energy required.

[Slump]

Or them lazer blasters from the classic Star Wars trilogy films or even phazers (with the famous "stun" feature) from the classic old-school Star Trek series would be welcome.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Haha yeah that's just what we need. I'd be doing Shatner rolls all the way down the street...

[Mortificator]

On a related note, the U.S. military has developed a special laser gun prototype that if it is used on a human being, the subject will feel a sensation of his or her skin is on fire when in reality, it is not. This type of "non-lethal" weapon hasn't been implemented in the U.S. military's weaponry cache yet but is on the back-burner.

In the meantime, someone thought up another application for it.

Anyway, not to look a video of death rays shooting down stuff in the eye, but couldn't they have spent a little more money on top of the billion-dollar laser and recorded its performance in color? I guess this could have been filmed at night in a low-light mode, though that also seems weird.

[ZOM]

That's the military for ya - spend immense sums of money on next-gen armament and ammo but are too greedy to invest in cameras that can record in color.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm in my 40's....ready for the glue factory...but I think it was Tesla that drew up plans for a Death Ray...I think he called it.

I guess that does ring a bell actually.

About the lack of color in the video - it's not a high-speed camera, but it looks like it could be an older ship-mounted one that just happened to be nearby. Perhaps it's specially filtered against strong rays - with a laser that powerful the skin of the airplane might reflect rays all over the place leading to effects like those mentioned before. Though I dunno how they'd be able to test the thing in daylight, though. The thing about it being shown at an airshow has me baffled - did they shoot down the plane during the airshow (over water obviously)? Can't tell. Final thought that comes to mind is that possibly they simply didn't want to reveal the wavelength of light used, though I'm sure it's been seen elsewhere.

[ROBOTRON]

I'm in my 40's....ready for the glue factory...but I think it was Tesla that drew up plans for a Death Ray...I think he called it.

I guess that does ring a bell actually.

Good ol' Wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

The death Ray part is half way down or so, makes for some interesting reading. The guy was amazing and ahead of his time...WAY AHEAD.

[spadgy]

Not sure this reply suggests you took a look at my link...If there's a pilot or even sensors, any little light-show laser may be able to bring it down. In the case of the pilot, they can't see. In the case of sensors, they might be damaged enough to do the same. (It's fiction, and fictitious fiction, but using a laser dazzler to bring down planes is a plot element in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor," the 1994 book which also is thought to predict or at least prefigure the use of commercial airplanes as bombs - that time a 747 into the Capitol building, instead of the White House / WTC / Pentagon).

I did look at your links (in fact the one about the 5D was of particular interest to my wife, who works with that camera at times, sometimes in the world of clubland), but I misunderstood that those links referred to felling planes . Makes sense though, although you'd have to be pretty unfortunate as a pilot to get taken down by a rogue club light show beam! Mind you, the Red Baron might tell you how easy it could be!

And yes Skykid - I've read the news! Obviously I'm ludicrously excited!