TIALD

TIALD, the Thermal Imaging Airborne Laser Designator targeting pod, is manufactured by SELEX Galileo and was the UK's primary laser designator for laser-guided bombs.

The UK uses the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs.) The first operational use of LGBs by the UK's armed forces were the RAF Harrier attacks on Argentine forces during the Falklands War. However, laser designation for these attacks was carried out by a forward air controller using a ground designator. Following the conflict it was realised that an airborne designator was required.

Ferranti Defence Systems started development of the TIALD pod in the late 1980s. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Gulf War saw the TIALD pod rushed into service. In the Gulf War several modified Panavia Tornados and some Blackburn Buccaneers laser designated for unmodified Tornados which carried LGBs. The Buccaneers carried the Pave Spike designator, which was less capable and limited to daylight. The RAF dropped over 6,000 1,000 lb bombs, 1,000 of which were laser guided. Two TIALD-equipped Tornados guided more than 200 LGBs onto targets in the last month of the conflict alone. Further development of the pod enabled aircraft to self-designate targets. The TIALD pod has been used extensively since the Gulf War including during the Iraqi no-fly zone patrols (1991-2003), the related Operation Desert Fox (1998), the Kosovo War (1999) and the 2003 Iraq Conflict.

The TIALD pod has been constantly updated, the current version of which is the Series-500. However The TIALD pod has been sidelined in recent years by the introduction of the stand-off Storm Shadow missile, GPS-guided Enhanced Paveway, and the LITENING pod to RAF service. Experience in Afghanistan lead to the realisation that TIALD was outdated, as described by an RAF Wing Commander:

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