alt Hacker NewsI was thinking about this the other day when watching a video about Chernobyl.
They flew countless helicopters over the exposed reactor core and because this was 1986, helicopters didn't have a million sensors or electronics in it. It was entirely mechanical. Effectively all in-use aircraft nowadays could not complete such a mission as the electronics would be rendered null almost instantaneously, even with ECC, etc.
Do these high energy lasers fry the electronics, or are they able to simply ignite and burn holes through the aircraft?
I had to vouch your comment as it and most comments from your account are auto [dead].
The lasers can fry sensors like I mentioned. They can also burn holes in the body of the aircraft and damage engines. I think you may be conflating the modern glass displays with the sensors themselves. In many cases the actual sensors have not changed that much in terms of being vulnerable to directed energy weapons. The energy being emitted from Chernobyl was gamma radiation which at high enough prolonged exposure can cause bit flips. The two TU-16 bombers that seeded rain clouds around Chernobyl were not affected at all by the gamma radiation and I doubt modern aircraft would be affected just flying over it.
Some time log out and view your comments [1] as almost all are auto [dead]. A new account could be a fresh start.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=wiredpancake