Dear Fellow Class A Owners, During this summers travels in the west I was confounded by a mark which I found on my drivers side window. At first I thought it was some kind of scuff but under close inspection it appears to be the result of having been hit with a rather powerful laser. While this sounds far fetched, the resultant damage has all the telling traits of such an impact. The mark is actually two separate sets of marks. One being on the outside of the glass and the other being an almost exact duplicate pattern on the inside of the glass. It also has the stippled type of spot pattern which laser produce due to its coherent nature. As I cleaned my glass before leaving on each days journey I can fix this damage as having happened somewhere around the Utah and Arizona border. Having had many years of experience in lasers in industry and in school I thought it might initially have been some individual who obtained a system out of an old cutting system, however the pattern was too regular and well formed and powerful enough to etch both sides of my window.I sent pictures of the damage to a friend who was involved in air combat missions and he sent me back a technical ad showing a new laser targeting system used by the military. Below is the link to the site he thought fit the description.https://www.raytheon.com/news/feature/high_energy_laserNow here is the wild part of the story. While visiting Newell this past month for service, I was speaking with one of the men who moves coaches around the country for Newell and discussed the event. He mentioned that he had something similar happen to him only he was confounded by its cause and thought he might have somehow caused the damage. I showed him my damage and he thought his was of the same type. Upon inspection of the various coaches which were presently at the factory a total of 9 coaches have been found to have damage I believe were laser caused. The service department also discussed having to repair additional coaches for damage to there paint which seemed to be of the same nature.Many of the coaches were in the same area as mine during there travels (Arizona/Utah border) and it would be a reasonable conclusion that during training missions the pilots are looking for moving targets to practice on, and well, a Newell is allot bigger target then a Prius. Also most of the damage is done mid location on side windows. Which from the air would be an easy area to target as they are seen as a distinct area to aim for and these systems are very accurate. Some of the impacts are actually a series of spots that are spread out over 2 or 3 feet showing the pulsed nature of the beam.I would like to get information from anyone else on the forum who thinks they may have also suffered similar damage. If you have pictures and remember where and when it happened it would be useful. I will post as many pictures as I can on the thread. My intention is to file a formal complaint with the Dod and have this practice stopped. In my case the beam striking my drivers side window passed within 3 or 4 inches of my face.
Regards,
Mike
