WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Air Force aims for laser weapons on a fighter jet by 2021.

The Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator program, or SHiELD, which launched this year, seeks to equip supersonic warplanes, such as the B-1 Lancer, F-35 Lightning and F-22 Raptor, with defensive lasers mounted in external pods.

The Air Force wants a high-energy laser system compact enough to complement the internal cannon and missiles equipped on its fighter jets.

The new system uses a type of optical fiber as the light-emitting material, instead of the neodymium-doped crystals used in conventional solid-state lasers. Since fiber can be coiled, more power can be packed into a compact system.

Difficult-to-detect supersonic jets armed with invisible weapons is exactly the 21st Century I was hoping for.