Northrop Grumman, ROLLING MEADOWS: A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet aircraft successfully released an inert GBU-38 weapon while carrying Northrop Grumman Corporation's Litening AT targeting system during a recent weapon separation test at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Lexington Park, Md.
The test was conducted by the Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division, Patuxent River as part of an ongoing commercial sales agreement with Northrop Grumman. The GBU-38 is the 500-lb version of the Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) air-to-surface weapon. In a combat environment, Litening AT will generate the precise coordinates of the operator-selected target, which are then passed by the aircraft to the JDAM. After being released, the JDAM uses global positioning system signals to guide it to the selected target coordinates.
Litening is currently operated by U.S. Marine F/A-18A+/D aircraft while carried on the aircraft's centerline station. The commercial sales agreement is designed to clear Litening for carriage and weapons employment when mounted on the Hornet's portside fuselage station, where targeting systems are typically mounted.
As with any weapons release program, a variety of configurations are being evaluated to ensure safe separation from the aircraft's adjacent station without flight restrictions. Besides the GBU-38, these include the GBU-12 (500-lb laser guided bomb), Mk-84 (2,000-lb bomb), AIM-120 (air-to-air missile) and FPU-8 (350-gallon fuel tank). The GBU-12 has also been successfully released, and the remaining tests should be completed in May 2005.
