DARPA is looking to equip military aircraft with laser guns

Prepare yourself for a future filled with real life pew pew! The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working with Lockheed Martin to test “a new beam control turret… to give 360-degree coverage for high-energy laser weapons operating on military aircraft.” In other words, it stuck a primitive (by rebel standards) “Star Wars”-style laser cannon on a fighter jet and flew it over Michigan eight times. “These initial flight tests validate the performance of our ABC turret design,” Lockheed’s Doug Graham said. in a release.

DARPA certainly has a venerable number of devices and machines up their sleeves to ensure that their military will have an edge over the enemy on the battlefield. One of their more recent forays? To attach a prototype laser turret onto a test aircraft. Does this mean we could be looking at some sort of Star Wars future? I have always figured out that lasers should more or less be fired at the speed of light, and the phasers in Star Trek do seem to be a whole lot more realistic. DARPA has worked alongside Lockheed Martin to test out “a new beam control turret which will be able to give 360-degree coverage for high-energy laser weapons operating on military aircraft.” Lockheed’s Doug Graham did mention that “these initial flight tests validate the performance of our ABC turret design.” The ABC stands for Aero-adaptive Aero-optic Beam Control, where it has been specially designed to enable high-energy lasers to fire on enemy aircraft and missiles regardless of where they are. Well, hopefully we will one day be able to see technology harnessed to create enough food to feed the hungry. Does this mean we will see a new era of warfare in the skies?