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Airborne Laser completes first flight

07/23/02 - WICHITA, Kan. (AFPN) -- An extensively modified Boeing 747-400F known as the Airborne Laser circled over western Kansas for an hour and 22 minutes during its maiden flight July 21, taking the first steps in becoming the world's first directed-energy combat aircraft.

It was the first time the aircraft had flown since arriving here Jan. 22, 2000, straight off the Boeing assembly line.

The flight was the first in a test series to prove the aircraft still performs like a Boeing 747 despite significant structural and operational changes made during its two-and-a-half-year stay at the Boeing Maintenance and Modification Center adjacent to McConnell Air Force Base.

"This successful flight is truly a milestone in the history of ABL," said Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL program office director at Kirtland AFB, N.M. "It represents a major step forward toward our ultimate goal of shooting down a ballistic missile with a beam of ultra-powerful light by the end of 2004."

The ABL is scheduled to take its place as a principal member of the boost-phase segment of the Missile Defense Agency's layered system designed to protect the country and U.S. troops against enemy ballistic missiles, Pawlikowski said. The ABL's task is to destroy just-launched missiles by focusing its high-energy laser beam on the pressurized fuel tank, causing it to rupture and explode, in effect causing the missile to kill itself.

ABL, now under the MDA's management, is being developed by a team composed of the Boeing Co., TRW, and Lockheed Martin Corp., the colonel said. Boeing supplied the aircraft and the sophisticated software system which will be the brains of the weapon system. TRW built the megawatt-class lasers that comprise the system's kill mechanism, while Lockheed Martin built the complicated maze of mirrors and lenses used to guide the lasers to the target and the turret that will house the system's 1.5-meter telescope.

Once testing has been completed, the ABL will be turned over to the Air Force, the first in a visualized fleet ready for use as a first line of defense against missile attack, according to Pawlikowski.

Although the aircraft is generically known as ABL, its official name is YAL-1A, which, in Air Force nomenclature, stands for Prototype Attack Laser, Model 1-A, Pawlikowski said. If testing goes well, it will be followed by a so-far undetermined number of similar aircraft.

Sometime in the next few months, YAL-1A will be flown to the Boeing facility in Everett, Wash., to be sprayed Air Force gray, she said. At that time, the number 00-0001 also will be painted on the tail. The number, assigned when the aircraft came off the assembly line, signifies it is the first new military aircraft of the millennium.

After it is painted and its airworthiness certified, YAL-1A will be flown to Edwards AFB, Calif., where the other weapon system segments -- lasers and optical system -- will be incrementally installed and tested, the colonel said.

That process is expected to take almost two years and includes laser firings on the ground and against a number of objects in the air such as balloon-dropped target boards and short-range rockets in preparation for its major test against a ballistic missile. (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)