Why do we have two FLIRs?

[CBStu]

I only fly the FA-18 so I may be missing the answer. I am curious, first we had Litening and then ATFLIR. I was thinking maybe the Litening would go away but it is still here. Is it because different US fighter jets are from different eras so there needs to be more than one Flir? Just thinking w/ all the work Ed is doing to fix things, bring new things etc, having just one flir to work with could lower their work load. 

[Hulkbust44]

LITENING is the older model but it's in primary use by the USMC fromand bases. Not carrier rated.

ATFLIR is what's used off carriers and is much more modern.

[rob10]

And since the LITENING is used on other aircraft in DCS, while I'm sure there are some Hornet specific things with it, they would still be required to maintain the fundamentals with it anyway.

[Tholozor]

Another aspect of LITENING vs. ATFLIR is that the ATFLIR can only be mounted on the left cheek station, while LITENING is (most commonly) carried on the centerline, but is capable of also being mounted on the left cheek in certain circumstances (provided the mounting adapter is available).

A similar scenario will probably occur if the F-16 gets the Sniper XR pod, and it'll have 2 to choose from.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Tholozor

[CBStu]

All the above makes sense. I fly a lot of user supplied SP missions and had noticed some times the plane has one or the other FLIR. But I hadn't made the correlation of type of FLIR vs land or carrier. Thanks guys. 

[angrysilverbeard]

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On 3/30/2022 at 3:05 PM, Hulkbust44 said:

LITENING is the older model but it's in primary use by the USMC fromand bases. Not carrier rated.

ATFLIR is what's used off carriers and is much more modern.

 

I think you have it backwards. I'm pretty sure ATFLIR is the older generation of pods, and the LITENING is the latest (for F-18s at least) . At least I don't remember us flying Litening pods until my active duty time was almost up. Let me know if I'm wrong though, and I'm not sure about the other aircraft communities since I was 18's my whole career. 

[Hulkbust44]

I think you have it backwards. I'm pretty sure ATFLIR is the older generation of pods, and the LITENING is the latest (for F-18s at least) . At least I don't remember us flying Litening pods until my active duty time was almost up. Let me know if I'm wrong though, and I'm not sure about the other aircraft communities since I was 18's my whole career. 

Nope, the Nite Hawk was the original FLIR which was replaced by the LITENING for use from air bases. The Navy kept the Nite Hawk until the ATFLIR.(had to)You can also see that the logic for the DCS LITENING is ancient.

[toilet2000]

9 minutes ago, angrysilverbeard said:

I think you have it backwards. I'm pretty sure ATFLIR is the older generation of pods, and the LITENING is the latest (for F-18s at least) . At least I don't remember us flying Litening pods until my active duty time was almost up. Let me know if I'm wrong though, and I'm not sure about the other aircraft communities since I was 18's my whole career. 

That misconception comes from the fact that the ATFLIR was never really upgraded. The LITENING was first fielded in 1999 while the early ATFLIRs were in 2003 ish. Moreover, IIRC our LITENING is an early AT model (2003 ish), whereas the most well known LITENING is a 2008+ G4 with much better resolution.

So for our Hornet, the ATFLIR is the better and more recent pod. For any Hornet after 2010-ish, the LITENING is the better pod because it was upgraded.

Edited April 3, 2022 by toilet2000

[angrysilverbeard]

Hmm, I don't remember us having litening pods on our jets until the 2003-04 time frame, but I do remember a FLIR pod. of course I could be thinking of the standard FLIR and not the ATFLIR. Been a long time since I've seen the FLIR or ATFLIR pods, and memory isn't what it was lol Thanks for the info though, gonna have to do some reading and try to remember what we used to fly so I get it straight. All I do remember for sure is one of our jets was one of a couple of active fleet jet test aircraft (not a VX squadron aircraft) for the center line Litening (not sure what gen pod, but it was first time I'd seen one) pod mod. That was a boring 6 weeks in China Lake lol. Shortly after my time was up lol

Thanks again for the information though

[silverdevil]

i looked at some google searchs and found possibly relevant info. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ASQ-228_ATFLIR

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ATFLIR presently is used only by the US Navy on the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the earlier F/A-18C/D and with Marine Corps F/A-18Cs when deployed onboard aircraft carriers. It is normally carried on one of the fuselage hardpoints otherwise used for AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.

Quote

The US Navy (USN) is considering options to either improve or replace ATFLIR because of current hardware readiness state and sustainment costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litening

there are a lot more LITENING pods out there being on lots of different aircraft.

 

[angrysilverbeard]

Yeah, I don't think the Marine Corps is all that big on the ATFLIR any more.  I did a bit of looking around as well and I think I might have been confusing myself between the FLIR and ATFLIR pods as well. From the pics I've looked at they are fairly similar in exterior appearance, so that might be contributing to my misidentification. That and we weren't to specific when we referred to them probably didn't help either. If it was on station 4 it was a FLIR and we didn't go beyond that much, regardless it was a FLIP or ATFLIR, at least in my shop.

Sorry for stepping out of my lane.  I'll stick to ordnance related subjects lol

[QuiGon]

9 hours ago, angrysilverbeard said:

Yeah, I don't think the Marine Corps is all that big on the ATFLIR any more.  I did a bit of looking around as well and I think I might have been confusing myself between the FLIR and ATFLIR pods as well. From the pics I've looked at they are fairly similar in exterior appearance, so that might be contributing to my misidentification. That and we weren't to specific when we referred to them probably didn't help either. If it was on station 4 it was a FLIR and we didn't go beyond that much, regardless it was a FLIP or ATFLIR, at least in my shop.

Sorry for stepping out of my lane.  I'll stick to ordnance related subjects lol

What exactly is the FLIR pod if I may ask?
I know FLIR just as the generic term for a Forward Looking Infrared sensor, but I don't know any pod with this specific name. In regards to the Hornet I only know about the old AN/AAS-38 Knight Hawk pod, the AN/AAQ-28 Litening pod and the AN/ASQ-228 ATFILIR pod.

[angrysilverbeard]

17 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

What exactly is the FLIR pod if I may ask?
I know FLIR just as the generic term for a Forward Looking Infrared sensor, but I don't know any pod with this specific name. In regards to the Hornet I only know about the old AN/AAS-38 Knight Hawk pod, the AN/AAQ-28 Litening pod and the AN/ASQ-228 ATFILIR pod.

I think it started from the knight hawk pod just being called the FLIR pod. It was sometimes used (once upon a time lol) to describe the 3 pods you listed. When I was active duty it was a generic term for which ever targeting pod was installed on the aircraft. Now days I hear t-pod, L-pod, tgp mostly used for the same thing. Its easier to say than AN/AAQ-28 when talking to someone about what's on the plane. Just my .02 though lol

[QuiGon]

58 minutes ago, angrysilverbeard said:

I think it started from the knight hawk pod just being called the FLIR pod.

I see, yeah, that absolutely makes sense, as it was the one and only FLIR pod back in the day (for the Hornet at least)

Edited April 4, 2022 by QuiGon