14 DAY TRIAL // Guided energy weapons, or laser guns, are still mostly the stuff of fiction, but research has reached the point where they can be weaponized, so of course China would be among the first to do it.
The Chinese are some of the hardest working people in the world, for various reasons. They're also among the most paranoid, though one may argue that they're only being cautious.
In any case, the Chinese airspace might go through some turbulence, forgive the pun, in the coming years. Maybe in the next months even.
That's because the country is preparing to set up a laser-based defense system with the express purpose of shooting aircraft out of the sky.
China is going to target drones first
We've all seen them by now. Little or not so little unmanned aerial vehicles that borrow from the design of airplanes or helicopters.
Quadcopters are the most common. Because of that, they will probably be the ones to first suffer the cold wrath of Chinese military engineers.
The China Jiuyuan Hi-Tech Equipment Corp is working with the China Academy of Engineering Physics on the creation of something called the Low Altitude Sentinel System.
Designed to target small craft, it will lock on a target and shoot them to dust within a period of five seconds from detection.
All drones can be tracked so long as they are moving at speeds of 111 mph / 180 km/h or below. The altitude has to be of 500 meters / 1,640 feet or less too. Also, the radius which one laser weapon will be able to target is 2 kilometers / 1.2 miles.
Quite ambitious, considering that weaponized lasers are still relatively young even now.
The issue of flying drones
We've mostly been hearing and writing about them in a positive light, but it's also true that there aren't any regulations for these things, not some that can easily be enforced. Because of that, people can endanger others, spy on them and their property, and possibly guide them negligently enough that they crash into something or other. Something expensive and important. It all boils down to what you install on them and how good (or bad) a remote pilot you are.
Obviously, China wants to stomp out the risks before it actually becomes a problem. Drone flyovers during events in urban areas will not be possible, for one thing, when even the test prototype is capable of shooting 30 drones with a 100% success rate all alone.