Forget the flying car…this is what you really wanted from the future:
A video released at the biannual aerospace convention in Farnborough, UK, today, shows a laser mounted on a warship’s gun turret obliterating a remotely piloted drone.
Built by Raytheon Missile Systems of Tuscon, Arizona, the 32-kilowatt infrared laser is shown illuminating and heating the wingtip and then the underside of what looks like a radar-seeking drone – until its remote pilot loses control and the aircraft catches fire and plummets into the ocean.
“Three similar drones were also successfully engaged at militarily significant distances by the solid-state laser” in May and June, says Mike Booen, the firm’s vice president. “It’s a world first over open sea.”
Imagine what we could achieve if all that money and inventiveness was sunk into creating things rather than blowing them up…
