LANTIRN

Fact Sheet

.....Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night, or LANTIRN, is a system for use on the Air Force's premier fighter aircraft - the F-15E Eagle and F-16C/D Fighting Falcon, as well as the Navy's F-14 Tomcat. LANTIRN significantly increases the combat effectiveness of these aircraft, allowing them to fly at low altitudes, at night and under-the-weather to attack ground targets with a variety of precision-guided and unguided weapons.

.....LANTIRN consists of a navigation pod and a targeting pod integrated and mounted externally beneath the aircraft.

.....The AN/AAQ-13 navigation pod provides high-speed penetration and precision attack on tactical targets at night and in adverse weather. The navigation pod also contains a terrain-following radar and a fixed infrared sensor, which provides a visual cue and input to the aircraft's flight control system, enabling it to maintain a preselected altitude above the terrain and avoid obstacles. This sensor displays an infrared image of the terrain in front of the aircraft, to the pilot, on a head-up display. The navigation pod enables the pilot to fly along the general contour of the terrain at high speed, using mountains, valleys and the cover of darkness to avoid detection. The pod houses the first wide-field, forward-looking infrared navigation system for Air Force air-superiority fighters.

.....The AN/AAQ-14 targeting pod contains a high-resolution, forward-looking infrared sensor (which displays an infrared image of the target to the pilot), a laser designator-rangefinder for precise delivery of laser-guided munitions, a missile boresight correlator for automatic lock-on of AGM-65D imaging infrared Maverick missiles, and software for automatic target tracking. For a Maverick missile, the pod automatically hands the target off to the missile for launch with pilot consent. For a laser-guided bomb, the pilot aims the laser designator, and the bomb guides to the target. For a conventional bomb, the pilot can use the laser to determine range, then the pod feeds the range data to the aircraft's fire control system. The designator is a four-digit PRF-coded laser that can designate for its own weapons or for other acquisition devices or munitions. These features simplify the functions of target detection, recognition and attack and permit pilots of single-seat fighters to attack targets with precision-guided weapons on a single pass.