Rafael (Stand N55) is showing the Reccelite XR (extended range) sensor that it launched last year, alongside the similarly upgraded Litening 5 targeting pod. The Singapore Airshow coincides with news that the tactical reconnaissance system has been demonstrated on a UK Royal Air Force (RAF) Tornado strike aircraft.

With so many air forces having chosen the Litening pod, the attraction of adding a dedicated recon sensor with the same form and fit is obvious. Six air forces have done so, adopting the original Reccelite system, which includes a wideband datalink and adaptable ground station. Now the addition of a short-wave infrared waveband (SWIR) to the previous medium-waveband (MWIR) plus CCD video gives Reccelite XR “some 80 percent of the capability of a much more expensive Long-Range Oblique Photography (LOROP) sensor,” said Yuval Miller, executive vice-president of Rafael’s Air and C4ISR Systems Division. The SWIR operates through the same, larger aperture as the MWIR.

On the stand, visitors can view imagery and video from the new pod that shows human-size targets at 15 nautical miles’ range, captured from a fighter flying at 24,000 feet. Larger objects can be discerned at up to 50 nautical miles. This standoff capability is daytime only, but the pod’s other sensors provide night capability, as before.

Miller said that Reccelite XR is in the process of delivery to the Israeli air force. The significance of the RAF demonstration is that the British air arm must find a replacement for the RAPTOR LOROP sensor that is currently carried by the Tornado. Those aircraft are being retired in 2019, leaving only the Eurofighter Typhoon as the candidate platform for retaining a dedicated reconnaissance sensor capability.