Boeing with a laser gun

The Boeing Company successfully tested the air-to-ground laser cannon, which is equipped with its new modified aircraft. In general, the Boeing 747-400F, equipped with a megawatt-class chemical oxygen-iodine laser COIL (Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser), is intended to destroy missiles. But missile interception tests will be conducted only in a year, in August 2009.

In the meantime, Boeing and its partners in the air-based anti-missile laser program (Northrop Grumman, who are developing the laser, and Lockheed Martin, who is in charge of the targeting complex), have successfully tested Advanced Tactical Laser on ground targets.

The COIL laser facility is located in the tail section of the aircraft, and a beam delivery system to the nose uses a complex system with low power lasers, deflecting mirrors and adaptive optics. Guidance and installation management (detection, identification and prioritization of targets) is carried out by an automated system. The action of the laser, by the way, ranges from 400 to 600 kilometers.
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The United States Department of Defense, which initiated the project to create such an aircraft with laser guns back in 1996, is already waiting for the final tests. After which Boeing with COIL will become an integral part of the US national missile defense system.

via Engadget