ROVER provides pilot's-eye view to ground forces

  • Published
  • By Maj. David Kurle
  • 442nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  A picture - or, in this case a video - really is worth a thousand words when it comes to an enhancement on the LITENING-AT targeting pod carried by the 442nd Fighter Wing's A-10 aircraft for its close-air-support mission.

The enhancement, known as the remotely operated video enhanced receiver, or simply by its acronym, ROVER, lifts some of the fog of war and allows 303rd Fighter Squadron A-10 pilots to transmit real-time video to troops on the ground during combat missions.

"The most difficult part of close air support was having a guy on the ground describing a target to a guy in the air," said Col. Steve Arthur, 442nd FW commander and veteran fighter pilot. "What he sees on the ground is totally different than what you see at 10,000 to 15,000 feet. It's so much easier to see a picture.

"It really clarifies the discussion between the pilot and the ground," he said.

ROVER is not new to the 442nd. The wing was in possession of the modification before but had to give them up to units deploying to Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. In fact, the wing's pilots have flown with the system in combat.

Now, new ROVER kits for the wing's targeting pods are arriving and 303rd pilots will once again continue training with ROVER in preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan next spring.

ROVER makes use of the existing imagery system in the LITENING-AT pod, which boasts day-light, as well as night-time infrared video cameras.

What ROVER does is process the video then transmits it to a receiver on the ground carried by a joint terminal attack controller, or JTAC, who is responsible for coordinating air strikes and advising ground commanders about when and where to employ air power in the heat of battle.

"When the signal from the pod hooks up with the JTAC, he can see on his display exactly what I'm seeing in the cockpit," said Maj. Tony Roe, an A-10 pilot and tactics officer in the 303rd FS. "So, all the things we see for target talk-ons, he sees right there on his video screen."

Talking an aircraft onto a target has traditionally been done through verbal radio communication between a pilot and the JTAC in an Army unit on the ground. These "talk-ons" could take a lot of valuable time before both the pilot and JTAC were confident they were both seeing the same thing.

"Talk-ons could be long and painful," Major Roe said. "ROVER has the capability to hasten finding the target, resulting in faster bombs on target."

Before an aircraft can execute an air strike during a close-air-support mission, the pilot receives permission from a JTAC or commander on the ground to ensure minimal collateral damage and avoid injury to friendly forces.

Senior Airman Zach Laird is a JTAC with the 10th Air Support Operations Squadron, based with the Army's First Infantry Division at Ft. Riley, Kan. He used ROVER to coordinate air strikes and advise ground commanders during a deployment to Iraq.

"ROVER definitely makes it safer because it gives everyone on the ground a 'warm-fuzzy' about what the pilot in the aircraft is seeing," he said. "I could sit there with ground commanders and see exactly what the pilots were seeing."

JTACs like Airman Laird operate the ground stations that receive the video from the LITENING-AT pods slung underneath Air Force strike aircraft. The whole set-up consists of a receiver with an antenna to receive and process the digital video, which then displays on a rugged version of a lap-top computer.

"The only downfall to it is that you're not going to put it in your pack and hump it somewhere," Airman Laird said. JTACs usually set the system up in a tactical operations center or a vehicle.

In addition to close air support missions, the ROVER has also turned the A-10 into a "non-traditional intelligence and surveillance" platform, according to Major Roe.

"In other words," he said, "the JTAC can be miles away and looking at real-time video of activity at another 'named area of interest.'"

If ground forces are located elsewhere, they can, by looking at video transmitted from ROVER, keep an eye on what is happening in a location they have visited previously or will be visiting at a later time, Major Roe said.

The airborne component of ROVER is actually a video link module, a black, metal box, a little smaller than a shoe box, which fits neatly into an existing space in the LITENING-AT targeting pod. The ROVER then transmits through a small, round antenna that sticks out about an inch from the bottom of the pod and has the diameter of a silver dollar.

"As long as the LITENING pod is ROVER-capable (meaning it is equipped with the antenna) all we do is insert the box," said Master Sgt. Daniel Thessen, an avionics technician in the 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron's Specialist Flight. "It works with the LITENING pod's existing cameras, they just ran a video line and tapped off of the existing video to transmit it."

"LITENING is constructed in modules, so it's designed to be 'plug-and-play,'" said Master Sgt. Daniel Abrams, also an avionics technician. "As long as the pods are configured for ROVER, we don't have a problem updating them."

Both master sergeants agreed that the biggest impact to maintenance would be switching the few ROVER-equipped pods in the 442nd inventory between aircraft each day so more A-10 pilots could train with it.

As the global war on terror evolved into counter-insurgency operations, the importance of hyper-precise air strikes and minimizing collateral damage demonstrated the need for a tool to aid in the decisions to release weapons from aircraft, Colonel Arthur said.

That tool is the ROVER-equipped LITENING-AT pod.

"I think ROVER got funded just because of the nature of what we're doing," Colonel Arthur said. "When you look at battles like Fallujah, it's door-to-door combat and being able to better coordinate with forces on the ground is crucial."