The AN/AAQ-28 LITENING targeting pod has been used on F/A-18A Hornet fighter aircraft, particularly with the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
United States Marine Corps (USMC): F/A-18A/C Hornets operated by the USMC were equipped with LITENING pods to perform ground attack missions.
LITENING Pod Capabilities
The LITENING Pod provides the following capabilities:
High-precision laser targeting
FLIR imaging for night and all-weather operations
High-resolution optical and television cameras
Automatic target tracking
Compatible with a variety of weapons, including laser and GPS-guided munitions
Northrop Grumman
The F/A-18A we have is supposed to be an early version.
I found the real plane on which it was based (base-skin wise) a while ago:
Spoiler
From 1987
Originally I was trying to find information about the C/D RWR antenna array of the ALR-67, because most Hornets had them. But this one didn’t, as one of the few. Hornet 405 of the same squadron did seem to have it, at least I found a picture of it with it. But basically this means that potentially the RWR should actually even lose C/D radar coverage. My speculation is that very early Hornets were still fitted with ALR-67 (ALR-45F was mentioned for RAAF Hornets, very similar anyway) without the C/D antenna, which maybe only later got retrofitted as time went on.
Anyways, Litening would make it a F/A-18A+ I think, don’t know if it received anything new before that upgrade. Which would entitle it to a lot more other things as well. But, I think that the current nitehawk pod is alright, however it’s broken in its current state.
I reported it a while ago, sadly flew under the radar: Community Bug Reporting System
What’s really funny is that these exact same issues were present on the F/A-18C early, but only for that one it got fixed before the update dropped and the A’s simply went untouched. Perks of being a 80 dollar premium aircraft I suppose.
In my opinion, F/A-18C/D (2006 ~ 2014) (USMC) from USA tech tree, F/A-18A+ (USMC) and F/A-18C/D MLU 2 (FiAF) equipped AN/AAQ-28(V)4 Litening AT (Advanced Targeting)
