Pave Penny


The Lockheed Martin AN/AAS-35 Pave Penny was a laser spot tracker carried by US Air Force attack aircraft and fighter-bombers to enable them to track a laser spot on the ground. PAVE was later used as an acronym for Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment.

Description

The Pave Penny was developed in the mid-1970s based on the earlier AN/AVQ-11 Pave Sword laser tracker used on a few USAF F-4 Phantom II during the Vietnam War, miniaturized using solid-state electronics.
The compact pod, which weighs only 32 lb is a simple laser spot tracker that searches for reflected laser light from other laser designators and displays that target information on the aircraft heads-up display. Unlike the laser ranger and marked target seeker systems common to European aircraft, or the more sophisticated ASQ-228 ATFLIR, TIALD, and LANTIRN designators, the Pave Penny does not contain a laser. It can recognize specific laser designation signals based on pre-determined four-digit codes encoded into the laser pulse, allowing it to seek out particular targets and ignore others. There is no range-finding capability. The Pave Penny's nominal range is 20 miles, although effective range is considerably shorter.
The Pave Penny pod was used by USAF A-7D Corsair II aircraft, fuselage-mounted beneath the engine intake, and the A-10 Thunderbolt II, mounted on an external pylon designed specifically for the pod. It was previously used by some F-16 aircraft, although most now use the LANTIRN system instead which permits self-designation. Some pods were also supplied to Singapore, where they were used on that nation's A-4SU Super Skyhawks.

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