ProductionNinja.com

Do you think this came about because Robert Gates was in a meeting one day and said that he wanted “airplanes with fricken laser beams attached to them”?

Laser plane could destroy tanks from 10 miles:

The United States Defence Department has developed a prototype of an aircraft armed with a laser gun that could destroy tanks 10 miles away.

The Airborne Tactical Laser weapon is to be mounted on a Boeing aircraft and is capable of destroying targets up to 15km (10m) away, according to Defense Update online magazine.

The ten-centimetre-wide beam will heat targets almost instantly to thousands of degrees and will slice through metal even at maximum range. It is intended both for battlefield use and for missile defense.