Protesters Blind Military Helicopter With Lasers

[DeSwiss]

See also: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023139156

- How appropriate that the darkness is being driven away by the light......

[AtheistCrusader]

1. I doubt it was blinded but

that looks totally awesome

[Thor_MN]

2. Without protective eye ware, anyone trying to look at that crowd

from that helicopter would have retinal damage in short order. Any camera try to film the crowd would at best be dazzled, if not damaged.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. If it is actually a military aircraft

visible light spectrum lasers of that type are no problem to FLIR and other systems.

In some cases they don't even see those wavelengths. The Egyptian Air Force certainly has access to the SAFIRE II FLIR systems on several of their rotorwing aircraft. That's state of the art shit, as far as export systems go.

It also has a 100mW laser of its own to 'point back' if it wants to.

[Thor_MN]

4. Great, the aircraft itself would not be blind, if it had state of the art equipment

State of the art eyeballs would be damaged, if they were used to directly observe the crowd.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Oh shit son

Someone posted a picture of it in the other thread.

That's an Apache D, probably one of the Block II variants we sold to Egypt (gave to them via foreign aid) in 2009-2012.
Those lasers aren't doing shit to it, and there's no way the pilot is looking at the crowd with unshielded eyes.


Still, it's a bluff-counterbluff situation. Nobody is going to shoot anyone over it, so the crowd probably rallies at the sight of it.

[Thor_MN]

6. Here I thought you were going to go off on the "impossible precision" angle.

That a handheld laser could never hit an aircraft in flight.

That said, the lasers do force the pilot out of visual flight and screw with any visual wavelength cameras. People in a massive protest crowd probably prefer not to have themselves on video footage... So I say that they are effective.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. That aircraft has filters that protect all of its optics from that sort of disruption.

it isn't even a nuisance to the pilot of that particular helicopter. They are not using bare eyeballs at night, not in that helo. Not a chance. At the most, the pilot has a warning light and maybe an alarm that tells him it is happening.

As an aside, the next time someone asks you 'why do they hate us', keep this event in mind. That aircraft represents US military airpower, in the hands of an oppressive government, being used against its own people. THAT is why they have some strong opinions about the US.


Other aircraft I agree it could be a serious issue. (Humans are pretty good at hitting things with that sort of laser, actually. Pretty intuitive interface, drunken hillbilly's hit 747's and police helicopters with those things all the time)

That said, it's still worth doing, because the crowd obviously loves it. Gives them something to do. Makes them feel like they are directly accomplishing something at that moment (which they are, but the dividends are slow to appear for this sort of protest). Humiliates the government to a degree.

Totally worth it from a PR/morale standpoint.

[Thor_MN]

8. Yes, I understand the concept of the pilot flying using images relayed to his helmet.

Considering that they are denying the visual spectrum to the unaided pilot and any observers, all they are missing (and we don't know that they are missing) is denying the IR spectrum to video systems. A couple hundred nice hot halogen maglights, to go with the couple hundred lasers, ought to be enough. It won't cause the pilot to crash, in all probability, but the area of the protest is going to be nothing but flashing lights and blacked out screens.

Light amplification and IR systems are great for flying in total darkness and can even block out a flare of light. They are great for targeting hot vehicles in the cold black of the night. They are shit for videoing individual humans to use in a trial. Unless the military is planning on opening up (blindly) with whatever armaments they have, the intimidation factor of the helicopter is neutralized.