Northrop Grumman recently hosted the U.S. military at its 11th LITENING Users’ Conference to share operational experiences with the targeting pod and identify priorities for capability upgrades.
The Northrop Grumman LITENING family of targeting pods is a self-contained, multisensor system with built-in connectivity to land forces. It enables pilots to detect, acquire, auto-track and identify targets for highly accurate delivery of both conventional and precision-guided weapons.
More than 100 aviators, maintainers, logisticians and program managers from the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard participated in the two-day conference, which took place at Northrop Grumman’s Rolling Meadows facility. The conference included briefings on all aspects of LITENING operations and support, including new capabilities currently under development.
Several users highlighted the LITENING G4′s distinctive and game changing capabilities, which are fully operational in active deployments.
“We rely on the performance and capability of the LITENING pod,” said Gen. William B. Binger, Commander, 10th Air Force and keynote speaker for the conference. “Agility is key. We must find relevant cost-effective capabilities that can be fielded now and which are compatible across multiple platforms.”
“The Northrop Grumman LITENING Users’ Conference is a great forum for the exchange of ideas between our technologists and the men and women in the military who count on LITENING to help accomplish their missions,” said Jim Mocarski, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s electro-optical/infrared business unit. “The feedback we receive is invaluable, enabling us to continually introduce new technical capabilities and other system enhancements to better serve our warfighters. We’ve learned much from each other.”
More than 630 LITENING pods have been delivered to date, continuing to prove their combat capabilities and inherent flexibility to adapt to changing operational requirements. Integrated on a wide variety of aircraft including AV-8B, A-10A/C, B-52H, EA-6Bs, F-15E, F-16 and F/A-18, LITENING is in operation with the Air Force, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve Command and Marine Corps, as well as the Italian and Spanish navies, the Israeli air force, the Royal Netherlands air force, the Finnish air force, the Portuguese air force, and the Royal Australian Air Force.
