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Hoover's get the LANTIRN pod
- Thread starter Super Hornet 88
- Start date
That is awesome to see! I know that the community has been working on trying to get it for several years but there has been resistance. When my squadron tried to get one for testing, we were told from on up high that the Marines didn't like it and to stop. I'm glad that they kept on working for it. Too bad they will all be gone soon. 
HooverPilot said:That is awesome to see! I know that the community has been working on trying to get it for several years but there has been resistance. When my squadron tried to get one for testing, we were told from on up high that the Marines didn't like it and to stop. I'm glad that they kept on working for it. Too bad they will all be gone soon.
WTF do Marines have to do with the S-3? I'd like to hear this story.
The Marine JV Hornets might need LANTIRNS just a teeny bit more than S-3s. Unless they like their sh!tty NiteHawks...
Super Hornet 88
New Member
I thought the Marines used the Litening pod?
Super Hornet 88
New Member
O.K. thanks for the clarification Fly Navy.
But I remember seeing a pic of an F/A-18D with a targeting pod on the center line station a while back. Maybe it was a LANTIRN.....
But I remember seeing a pic of an F/A-18D with a targeting pod on the center line station a while back. Maybe it was a LANTIRN.....
We were trying to test the LITENING Pod on the Hoover, but the Marines were the closest ones who had one. We had worked out a deal to borrow one for a bit, but then we got the cease and desist NOW order. We figured that someone thought we were pushing in on their turf or something like that. 'Cause the Hoov is so threatening...
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Harriers, Hornets (I think Deltas only), Vipers, and everybody else who can get ahold of one for testing.
The problem is that there are only so many out there, and so many more that can be made in a certain period of time. Every time one gets taken away to be retrofitted on another legacy platform, there is one less in the war.
I realize that this might be a sensitive issue for some folks here. I'm not trying to bash S-3s or any other community. In the Marine Corps, these things are precious assets. The Harrier community was busting their butts to get a self designating capability for a long time with little to no support (in my view) from the navy (who owns all the planes). Since the navy doesn't operate Harriers, it was never a high enough priority for them. They were commited to AT-FLIR and our Hornets were going with that as well.
The F-16 has been flying this pod for years and some enterprising Marine officers on beltway tours were able to leverage this on a shoestring (like Heyjoe did for the Tomcat and LANTIRN) to get them on Harriers. As one of the first (by pure luck) "non-jedi warrior WTIs" to get qualled on it, it was impressed on me early on that fvcking up a pod was tantamount to crashing the jet. The numbers of these pods was controlled and monitored VERY high up on the food chain. When a jets crashes, invariably one of the first questions that is asked is "Did it have a Litening pod on it". Very high vis.
When a squadron/MAG/MAW is scrambling to get enough pods on its jets to deploy back to the war, it is very disheartening to hear that "we had to give some up to XXXX to test on XXXX". It was quite the same story when, after OIF 1, the Marine Hornet community decided to get on board with Litening by trying to take all of our pods away. That might be an overstatment, but that's how we felt about it.
Obviously, we need to make more. That will take time. In the mean time we need to make sure they are going where they make the most sense. Perhaps that might include the S-3, P-3, SH-60, or the CH-46. That's not for me to decide in this billet.
I think you know where I want them, but so does everybody else.:icon_mi_1
No worries. We didn't get our feelings hurt, we were just trying to do the same; get a self lasing capability. We dropped it for the time being but it is obvious by the pictures that someone else was able to pick it up. It was 2003 when we were doing this so I'm sure they were needed elsewhere at the time.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
DAMN. Even we have self lasing capabilty. (HSL)
Yeah, but they can launch things that have a little more oomph on the pointy end.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Yeah. But we also can buddy lase for those with more oomph and no lasers.
