As Laser Strikes On Aircraft Increase, Eyeglasses And Exotic Countermeasures Are Under Development

The fact that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks stopped by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base earlier this month to get a briefing on countermeasures for laser strikes indicates just how serious a threat laser-dazzling has become for military, commercial and private aircraft.

Hicks was briefed by a team from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on research efforts and newly fielded capabilities — some of them classified — to thwart the danger of laser-blinding and other exploits to military and non-military aircrews. AFRL recently concluded trials of a new type of glasses that can protect human eyes from laser-blinding without compromising aircrew visual acuity within cockpits.

Pilots from the Washington State Police Patrol flew with so-called CALI (Commercial Aviation Low Intensity) spectacles developed by AFRL in 2021. AFRL has since sent a box of the specially designed glasses to the FAA, which is currently flight testing them.

The severity of the laser strike problem has been highlighted by several years’ worth of incidents in Africa and the South China Sea, where Chinese military-operated lasers were aimed at and struck cockpits of American and Australian tactical airlift and surveillance aircraft. One of the most recent publicly reported incidents occurred last February.

In addition to these military-military incidents, reports to the FAA of laser strikes on civilian and commercial aircraft almost tripled from 3,894 in 2014 to 9,723 in 2021. The record number of reported incidents in 2021 led the General Accounting Office to call in mid-August for the FAA to strengthen its mitigation and enforcement efforts.

Last February, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Watch One helicopter was flying near Palmetto, Florida, at night when it was lit up by a green laser aimed from the ground. Manatee County Deputy Ben Sehorne was at the controls. “All you see is green,” he said. “So, it’s very disorienting. It’s almost like a disco ball. Once the laser itself hits the cockpit, it bounces everywhere, and it’s very blinding.”

The CALI spectacles which the FAA is now evaluating are the most obvious outcome of the work AFRL has been doing for over two decades on the laser strike problem. Hicks confirmed that her briefings Wright-Patterson AFB also included classified discussions of in-development counter-directed energy applications.

Richard Vaia, AFRL’s chief scientist for materials and manufacturing, told online tech publication FedScoop that the lab is working on laser-dazzling countermeasures that are “very far out there — putting nanostructures on surfaces so that you can actually reject certain wavelengths of light or route certain wavelengths of light.”

An oft-missed point is that this materials-engineering approach can not only protect pilots’ eyes but can be applied to structures, sensors and platforms which the U.S. military has already seen compromised, including military satellites.

Chinese and Russian experiments with lasers to damage sensors on satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. Air Force and now the Space Force stretch back to the early 2000s. More recently, mobile Russian laser systems called Zadira and Peresvet were reported to be in operation with Russian Strategic Missile Forces at ICBM sites within Russia.

The CALI eyeglasses trialed by the Washington State Police differ from currently marketed laser eye protection spectacles, which are largely designed to filter out the green or red light associated with lasers. While they do this effectively, the filtering that such glasses employ alters pilot perception of certain colors, including instrument panel backlighting (often red, orange or blue), making it hard for them to read and interpret flight instruments.

AFRL modified cockpit compatibility design software already in use with DoD to help design amber-hued polycarbonate lenses that protect the eye from laser dazzling but don’t interfere with cockpit instrument legibility in both military and commercial aircraft. Washington State Police Patrol crews gave AFRL positive feedback on the minimal effect the lenses have on readability.

“It doesn’t distort colors too tremendously bad. I think the biggest distortion that we see is that it does darken up white, making it look more yellowish,” Trooper Pilot/Tactical Flight Officer Camron Iverson told AFRL. “But your reds and blues — even your greens — that are displayed on the instrument panel screen still look red, blue and green.”

AFRL utilized commercial off-the-shelf dyes for the lenses and placed them in sleek, lightweight frames that cover the face but don’t interfere with the headsets or earbuds pilots wear while in the cockpit. The laboratory expects to hear from the FAA about how its glasses fare in testing the agency is doing by year’s end or in early 2023.

The CALI glasses would have been welcomed by the aircrew of a Toronto-based air ambulance helicopter early last Friday morning. While landing to transport a patient near Niagara Falls, the helicopter was flashed twice by a laser. An onboard paramedic was struck in the eye.

As helpful as well-designed spectacles may be, U.S. military and commercial aircrews will need more help to cope with the growing threat. After her AFRL briefings Deputy Secretary Hicks indicated that passive and active countermeasures are already in operation.

“I was able to see capabilities already fielded, and then the potential for more capabilities down the road,” she said.