India acquires 164 Rafael Litening targeting pod

Rafael will supply 164 examples of its Litening targeting pod to the Indian air force, for use on four types of combat aircraft including New Delhi’s Sukhoi Su-30 fighters.

Guy Oren, director of Rafael’s electro-optical systems unit, says the pods will be delivered in the next couple of years.

The company adds that the new version doubles up as a surveillance and reconnaissance system in addition to being a targeting pod.

Rafael Litening 5 targeting pod is currently be integrated on Airbus Defence & Space owned Eurofighter combat aircraft and likely will be offered later to all Operators of Eurofighter fighter jets.

Indian air force has been using Litening 3 Pods on Sukhoi-30KI, Mig-29, Mirage-2000, Jaguar and Indigenous developed LCA-Tejas and last year India placed order for 150 Litening G4 for its frontline fighter aircraft, including the Su-30 MKI, MiG-29 and others.

Litening 5 maintains same dimensions and form which means new Pod can be integrated into different aircraft types among existing customers with ease and evaluation is part of product demonstration effort to make aware of the new products capabilities said sources close to idrw.org which doesn’t mean immediate orders .

Rafael dubs Litening 5 as intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance system which uses two FLIRS a Mid-wave infrared and Shortwave infrared which comes with color CCD HD-TV which vastly improves target recognition and separation of man made objects which are usually harder to spot .

In February it was announced that the planned Litening acquisition would fall under a larger $500 million deal between India and Israel, which would also see the Rafael Spice 250 precision-guided bomb provided to New Delhi.

 

 

Source :- Flight Global

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