AC-130 Gunship Laser Weapon Program's Future Is Looking Blurry
Story by Howard Altman • Yesterday 4:52 PM
Modifications to Air Force Special Operations Command's (AFSOC) fleet of AC-130 gunships means that even if a planned August test of the new Airborne High Energy Laser (AHEL) system aboard an AC-130J Ghostrider this summer proves satisfactory, a whole new round of integration work and testing may be required after those trials should the system be transitioned to an operational capability, The War Zone has learned.
At the moment, the future of the AHEL program beyond this year remains murky. In 2019, the Pentagon initially signed a five-year contract with Lockheed Martin, which successfully completed factory acceptance testing and delivered the AHEL to the AFSOC in 2021. The first flight testing was originally anticipated sometime in Fiscal Year 2022, but that has been pushed back to this summer. And now, what was widely considered the best candidate to become the first operational airborne laser weapon system may never reach that goal at all.
Work on laser weapons on C-130s dates back many years, with the Advanced Tactical Laser system seen here during testing nearly a decade and a half ago. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Miranda Mahoney.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ac-130-gunship-laser-weapon-program-s-future-is-looking-blurry/ar-AA1b4z9V?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=a6f490a78dd14e758ac65048e16bddaa&ei=43
