Germany Orders Ninety Litening 5 Pods

In Israel, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (Rafael ADS) confirmed it has secured a significant order from Germany for the supply of ninety Litening 5 pods to be used by the Luftwaffe’s Eurofighter fleet.

The Litening 5 will enhance precision strike, reconnaissance, and post-strike analysis capabilities of the Eurofighter combat aircraft.

Rafael ADS’s Litening is a fifth-generation targeting system already operational in 28 Air Forces worldwide, with over 2,000 units delivered and over 2.2 million operational flight hours. It has become one of the most widely used targeting pods in service today.

Features of the Litening 5

The pod is characterized by precision and mission adaptability; the pod’s sensor suite includes medium and short-wave infrared, high-resolution colour images, dual-wavelength laser designation, with optional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for wide-area imaging in any atmospheric condition.

This allows long-range detection, recognition and identification of targets in various weather conditions, including for naval aviation missions.

The Rafael ADS pod supports air-to-surface and air-to-air operations, including ground mobile target indication, multi-target tracking and automatic target recognition.

For air-to-air operations, the Litening 5 enhances target identification at range, supports low RCS threat detection, and provides missile cues when integrated with the host platform.

In addition, in the air-to-air function, the pod offers capabilities for detection and engagement of unmanned aircraft (UAV), supporting the operational flexibility of the aircraft against various types of threats.

The Litening 5 is compatible with laser-guided, GPS and imaging munitions, and includes real-time data-link capabilities on Ku, C and L bands.

In the future, further modular updates will be made available by Rafael ADS to further expand the capabilities of the pod.

Source and image credit @Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.