Lasers are just like a flash light as with distance comes less power.I am under the impression that if you point a laser at an object it takes time to destroy that object.
Sure you can. For one thing, a LOS weapon is limited to being, well... Line of Sight. Which means if the strike aircraft is able to launch from outside of the LOS, or remain "out of sight" then the lasers could be used to engage the aircraft.
Not like a flashlight (or torch, as we'd say), because the beam is far more coherent. The beam does spread with distance, but very little. There are also losses from hitting dust, water droplets, & even air. So yes, there is a loss with distance, but vastly less than with conventional light sources.
You can't guarantee that a burst of concentrated direct energy could hit a vital electrical component. What you can guarantee (at least, more so) is that you could hit something just as important - and more importantly bigger - like an engine or just generally center mass and if you pump enough energy onto it a major fault will happen ultimately ending up downing the aircraft or forcing it to bug out due to component failure.
The light from the laser will still only travel a path which is a straight line, hence LOS limitation. A UAV or helicopter (or other form of aircraft) could potentially provide extended detection capability since it would have a farther visual and radar horizon than a ship-mounted sensor or LOS weapon, but the laser still would need to wait until the target had passed over the horizon towards the ship.
IIRC there was a little bit more to it than power generation and what type of laser, but not by much. It is also a good point, since if we start attempting to justify what fighter jet Canada should (or should not) get based upon the potential for anti-aircraft lasers to be in service... Such arguments belong in a Scifi forum, since we are quite a ways away from such weaponry being in service, nevermind capable enough to replace SAM's in an area air defence role. Not to mention that if this is something people are getting hung up about, it would serve as an argument for elimination of all sorts of airborne surveillance and combat assets. I do not see anyone attempting to make that sort of argument here.
Well, that idea are certainly flowing around in the media a lot lately, Harper will probably double down on F35 but the next election is only 2 years away so maybe someone else will be PM by then.
Between you and me I'm actually expecting over the coming 1-2 years to see the US cut back its F-35 orders as well. Bottom line budgets seam to be tightening in a lot of countries. I'm just hoping the likely scale backs to orders globally doesn't have a crazy impact on unit price otherwise that may well cause the problem to become even worse. A kind of death spiral so to say where orders reduce and price increases and as a result more orders reduce etc.
nope, thats the process of alerting congress etc.... it is not about an intent to purchase.
A business decision IMHO, as in, LM the Australian government wants to see results(as we are seeing in the JSF program) or we are more than happy to buy off Boeing. I think(and hope) they are just playing politics.
momentary OT to respond:
People don't realize many countries are in really bad financial situation and will NEED to cut a huge chunk of the current govt spending.
Wonder how EO-DAS will work in this blind spot ,probably work pretty well.
IIRC the EODAS should counteract this issue, feeding images directly to the HMD. I'm fairly certain I read a report that said it would allow the user to "see" through the floor as well, but I can't for the life of me find it.
