It is amazing how much life some old military projects have in
them. In the early 1980s the Soviet Union had a number of
projects that explored military applications of lasers. Most
were related to space, anti-satellite weapons, space. One of
these projects, Dreif (Drift), involved an air-based laser that
was installed on an Il-76M aircraft. In the early 1980s the
system, known as A-60, was tested against aerostats (at a range
of up to 40 km). Although the laser was not capable of
destroying missiles or spacecraft, it was at some point
considered for deployment on board of the Skif space-based ASAT
station. This program was never completed - the prototype, Skif-
DM/Polyus, with no laser on board, was lost in the fist Energia
launch on May 15, 1987. The test Il-76 aircraft, had a difficult
history and at some point was reported to have been lost in a
fire. But it surfaced again, seemingly intact - photos of the
plane were published a few days ago at russianplanes.net web
site (there may have been two planes, on