Advances across a range of fields could enable a sci-fi upgrade to the fighter jet.The Air Force has recently become more bold in its predictions that a laser could be airborne by 2020. For instance, the Missile Defense Agency recently announced that they were revamping the Airborne Laser Program that was shuttered in 2012. The goal is to fly an airborne laser demonstrator in 2021.
"Everybody thinks you have a tendency to talk about high-powered microwaves and lasers and it's kind of science fiction," Air Combat Command leader Gen. Herbert Carlisle, the leader of Air Combat Command, said at the recent Air Force Association Air and Space Conference. "But this is a reality. I believe that we will have a directed energy capability in a pod that can be mounted on a fighter aircraft very soon."