High Powered Lasers require a bit of energy to operate, but if they are put aboard an Aircraft Carrier with Nuclear Power, well then it is not a problem. What could an Aircraft Carrier do with a high-energy laser? Well it could defend its self in the battlespace along with the rest of the fleet. But that is not all it might be useful for. How do you mean you ask? Well why not use the laser to re-align the molecules in the air in front of the aircraft carrier in order to allow the air to become thicker? But why you ask?

Lets say that the air is thicker in front of the aircraft carrier when an aircraft is launched; this means the aircraft would be more buoyant and thus have more lift and able to carry a larger than normal load on take off. If the catapult launches the aircraft to 175 knots and the aircraft is at maximum take off weight there is not much room for error. And a 50 million dollar fighter jet on a cold cat shot or a jet engine hick-up during full power take off; well let us just say that is not in the taxpayers best interest now is it?

If we could raise the takeoff weight by 4,000 lbs then we can carry 16 more 250 lb guided bombs. This could mean efficiencies in less sorties to take out the total number of targets and improve the loss ratios in the war, as if you do the same amount of damage to the enemy with less flights you have less risk and therefore potentially less loss. And that is a very good thing.

But how exactly would this work? Well simple, the high energy laser would fire ahead of the aircrafts flight path and super heat the air and re-align the air molecules to make it thicker and then shoot a couple of bursts right before the aircraft is launched by the catapult. Then the aircraft would fly a beeline through the thicker air until it reaches its safe speed. It could work, so consider this in 2006.