Most aircraft store some of the fuel for the aircraft in the wings. In the future fighter aircraft will have chemical lasers on board instead of guns or air to air missiles. Generally the outer wing of a fighter does not hold fuel due to the weight and wing loading, yet it could hold compressed gas to use for chemical laser weapons. Currently there are small chemical laser weapons being designed and tested, which are about the size of refrigerators. There is a ways to go yet to make these weapons smaller and able to fit into the available cavities of the aircraft to maintain speed and stealth. I propose we make the out wings or wing tips inflatable and fill them with chemical laser gases. Once you let the gas out and fold in the wing, you use that to make eddies with the laser above the main wing for lift during the transition, why waste it? The gas would be stored in pressurized canisters to use in inflation of the wing. Each canister has the type of gas in it to run the laser. These canisters could be used for the laser or filling of the outer inflatable wing. If all the canisters were used up in-flight during combat or to evade Surface to air missiles by creating better flight characteristics and agility thru the chemical laser made eddies; then before landing the pilot would fill it with ram air, since normal air would being forced into the outer wing would suffice. Think on this. |