AF Chief of Staff: ABL not going anywhere
Published March 1, 2010 | 
Engadget is reporting on comments from the US Air Force’s Chief of Staff about the Airborne Laser:
Seeing a Boeing 747 destroy a liquid-fueled ballistic missile with a megawatt-class laser is undoubtedly one of the tech highlights of the year so far. Unfortunately, as impressive as the demonstration was, it’s unlikely to be militarized in its current state. While the Air Force’s chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz, called the demonstration “a magnificent technical achievement,” he has no intention of introducing the fat tub of chemical goo into the theater of war. Solid state lasers are the future “coin of the realm,” according to Schwartz, not Boeing’s chemical laser which he claims, “does not represent something that is operationally viable.” Of course, the chemical core of the laser was just a single component of the ALTB that managed to track, target, and destroy a moving projectile from an airborne platform. And while the technology might not be viable for broad deployment, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be fitted into a special forces AC-130 Gunship for covert operations until solid state lasers (currently limited to about 100kW) achieve megawatt status. Just saying.
Well, I’m glad to see that Gen Schwartz agrees with me. If it wasn’t for the fact that the ABL is a flying chemical plant, it would be a good idea. He is right that it is an amazing technical achievement, but it simply isn’t suited for deployment. Now, to me this is obvious, so I have to wonder why we spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the ABL, when it was clear that it would never be suited for deployment. Sounds like a waste of money. Maybe I’m missing something… or someone just hated the idea of not spending the money.
Israel Drones Targeting Iran
Published February 23, 2010 | Al Jazeera reported today that Israel has announced that it now has Heron TP drones with enough range to target Iran. This really isn’t surprising since Israel is one of the worlds leaders in unmanned aerial vehicles. They have been at this for years, and to develop something with that type of range, while challenging, isn’t out of their technical expertise.
This isn’t a real game changer in the ongoing struggle between Israel and Iran. Israel and Iran are struggling over many things, but militarily it is over the possible use of nuclear weapons by Iran. Iran in response to the threats from the West, including Israel have moved their nuclear program well underground. Unfortunately, the West is only guessing as to what sites are nuclear related, and no drone is going to be able to carry a large enough weapon to make a difference to any hardened facility. This certainly will help Israel to keep an eye on Iran and will help their planning. This can augment any manned reconnaissance flights or their use of commercial satellite imagery.
The most likely mission for the Heron TP is simply to gather intelligence, either SIGINT or IMINT. While it may be capable of being armed, it is probably limited to one or two precision guided bombs. Now, it’s primary mission may be to help Israel locate the Iranian nuclear facilities, but I doubt that this is going to really make a difference in finding them. It may prove best at simply being a constant eye over the Persian Gulf to monitor traffic in and out of Iran. As long as it is flying legally and in international territory, Iran will have a hard time deterring them.
Millions for this Crap?
Published February 20, 2010 | CNN is reporting that a “bomb scanner” purchased by Iraq, Thailand, and others is a hoax. According to CNN:
The Thai government announced Tuesday that the GT200 failed rigorous tests carried out by scientists and the army in Thailand, after concerns were raised that the device was an elaborate hoax.
Unless you live completely in the Star Trek universe, who could reasonable believe that a device that is no more than a dowsing rod with a chip can actually find bombs. There have been previous reports about the GT200′s extensive use in Iraq, and that the US Military expressed concerns over their use. “Global Technology”, the makers of this device have and continue to defend their product despite the wide disbelief of their abilities. This is a case of “if it is too good to be true, then it probably isn’t”. If this worked, it would be great. It’s a small device, human powered, and highly accurate for a wide range of explosives. For a small price you can replace the explosive dogs, the massive detection systems in our airports, and so on. But there is no science that I’m aware of that would allow this thing to work. For any sensor to work, they have to receive input, either a reflection of what they sent out (such as radar), or passively (such as your ear). This device just fails the common sense test.
According to e-k9.net this is how the GT200 works:
The GT200 works on the principal of dia/para magnetism. All substances carry a magnetic charge that, when stimulated by an impulse of electricity, (static) creates an attraction between the substance being detected and the GT200 unit itself. This is called EMA or Electro Magnetic Attraction.
The simple way to explain this technology is to take an inflated balloon and rub it on your hair. A static charge is being created making that balloon “attract” it to say, a wall. Provided that there is enough charge on that balloon, it will remain “attracted” to the wall for an indefinite amount of time. However, once the “charge” has dissipated, the balloon will then “unattached” between itself and fall to the ground.
What the GT200 is doing is creating an “attraction” between itself and the substance it wants to detect. Through the Substance Sensor Card and the movement of an operator, an attracting field is created in the card reader that, in turn causes the Receiver”s antenna of the GT200 to lock onto a signal, indicating the direction in which the substance can be located. When the magnetic signal of the substance that the GT200 is searching for, is located within its detection range, the GT200 receiving antenna will move toward the direction that the substance exist. In essence the GT200 functions like a hyper sensitive receiver.
Yeah… right… doesn’t quite follow Maxwell’s equations now does it. How much static electricity would you need to create to excite a substance away to be detectable to a human powered detector? Maybe if you got really close to the explosive, placed some static-y material on top, and rubbed it hard… then maybe if you haven’t blown yourself up to pieces it may work. The worse part of this is that even today on their website, they are defending this product. They should pull it off the market immediately, and offer full refunds. I just hope that no one has been killed while trusting this device to work.
Airborne Laser Hits Missile
Published February 14, 2010 | 
On 10 Jan, the US Air Force’s Airborne Laser (ABL) finally hit and destroyed a sub-launched ballistic missile. The ABL is a great achievement in direct energy weapon design, and a complete waste of taxpayer money. It is an albatross in the world of missile defense. It is expensive, a potential environmental nightmare, and unable to intercept any significant number of missiles. The ABL should have been finished and in the field years ago, and has continuously slipped. I’m actually surprised that they ever got it far enough to shoot anything.
The ABL uses a chemical laser. Sounds cool, until you realize that these are highly toxic chemicals. The aircraft is a flying tanker of hazardous chemicals. This thing suppose to fly in wartime. So, it is realistic to expect that it may get shot at, and if it is hit, boom. And if the chemicals don’t create a lovely mushroom cloud in the sky, it will rain down hazardous chemicals on those below. You just hope that it is flying high enough for the chemicals to dissipate. But wait, there’s more. It doesn’t carry a significant amount of chemicals on board. Actually, that isn’t true, it is just that it uses an enormous amount of chemicals for each shot, so it runs dry pretty quickly. If the Russians launch a thousand missiles, the ABL won’t be effective. Any nation launching a single or very small handful of missiles has to know that we will launch a massive nuclear strike against them. So, to be effective, we will need a lot of ABL’s flying in the air at the same time, and they it will land and refill if we ever get into a nuclear weapon shooting war (assuming anyone is left alive to launch anything after the first wave). If the idea is to land and refill, and that this will take place in a forward deployed base, then it has to bring fuel bladders forward with it to fill with these chemicals. Well, bladders aren’t protected, so on an airbase within missile range will be rubber bladders filled with highly toxic chemicals. I don’t want to be there when a missile, or saboteur blows up one of those bladders. If I was a foreign government, I wouldn’t allow the ABL anywhere near my soil. It is likely that the missiles flying overhead are heading to the US and not my own country, so why put my people and environment at risk?
Now, eventually it may be possible to replace the chemical laser with a solid state laser. Today, the technology doesn’t exist for such a high power solid state laser. There would still be significant power requirements, but at least it would reduce the potential environmental nightmare. The ABL should be cut as a program until a solid state laser is powerful enough to do the job. It is a waste of money and a flying environmental nightmare. Maybe the DoD budget will be stressed by today’s wars such that this albatross gets shot in the head… at least I can hope.