The Thermal Imaging Airborne Laser Designator (TIALD) was a

targeting pod Targeting pods (TGP) are target designation tools used by attack aircraft for identifying targets and guiding precision-guided munition (PGM) such as laser-guided bombs to those targets. The first targeting pods were developed in conjunction wit ...

manufactured by

Ferranti Ferranti International PLC or simply Ferranti was a UK-based electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century, from 1885 until its bankruptcy in 1993. At its peak, Ferranti was a significant player in power grid system ...

GEC Marconi Marconi Electronic Systems Limited (MES), or GEC-Marconi as it was until 1998, was the defence arm of General Electric Company (GEC). It was split off from GEC and bought by British Aerospace (BAe) on 30 November 1999 to form BAE Systems. GEC th ...

in the late 1980s and 1990s, and was the UK's primary

laser designator A laser designator is a laser light source which is used to designate a target. Laser designators provide targeting for laser-guided bombs, missiles, or precision artillery munitions, such as the Paveway series of bombs, AGM-114 Hellfire ...

for its

Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is a ...

series of

laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly pro ...

s (LGBs).

History

The RAF's first laser designators were

Westinghouse Electric Corporation The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was ...

Pave Spike pods fitted to

Blackburn Buccaneer The Blackburn Buccaneer is a British aircraft carrier, carrier-capable attack aircraft designed in the 1950s for the Royal Navy (RN). Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough Aerodrome, Brough, it was later officially k ...

s which entered service in 1979. As these were limited to daylight use, the Ministry of Defence initiated studies for a new laser designator. The first operational use of LGBs by the UK's armed forces were the RAF Harrier attacks on

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

forces during the

Falklands War The Falklands War () was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British Overseas Territories, British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and Falkland Islands Dependenci ...

. Laser designation for these attacks was carried out by a forward air controller using a ground designator. In 1988 a

-led consortium was awarded a contract for development of its TIALD laser designator pod for use on the

Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany. There are three primary #Variants, Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS ...

. The Ferranti pod incorporated thermal imagers from GEC-Marconi and automatic video tracking equipment from British Aerospace. The first use of the TIALD pod occurred during trials in May 1990 where a Buccaneer guided Paveway II bombs dropped from a Tornado. The 1990

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, codenamed Project 17, began on 2 August 1990 and marked the beginning of the Gulf War. After defeating the State of Kuwait on 4 August 1990, Iraq went on to militarily occupy the country for the next seven months ...

saw the TIALD pod rushed into service on Tornado GR1s in just 46 days. In the resultant Gulf War, two pre-production TIALD pods were used to guide 229 LGBs to their targets. The TIALD pod was used extensively following the Gulf War including during the

Iraqi no-fly zone The Iraqi no-fly zones conflict was a low-level conflict in the two no-fly zones (NFZs) in Iraq that were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in ...

patrols (1991-2003), the related

Operation Desert Fox The 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major bombing campaign against Iraqi targets, from 16 to 19 December 1998, by the United States and the United Kingdom. On 16 December 1998 Bill Clinton announced that he had order ...

(1998),

Operation Deliberate Force Operation Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign conducted by NATO, in concert with the UNPROFOR ground operations, to undermine the military capability of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), which had threatened and attacked UN-desig ...

, Bosnia (1995), the

Kosovo War The Kosovo War (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Косовски рат, Kosovski rat) was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It ...

(1999) and the 2003 Iraq Conflict. In March 1995 the RAF received the first upgraded

SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is a British-French supersonic jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. As of 2025, the Jaguar remains in service with the ...

aircraft capable of operating the TIALD pod. The upgrade required both hardware and software updates of the type. Integration on the Harrier GR7 commenced in 1996.

Manufacturer

Due to the corporate history of its parent companies, the manufacturer of the TIALD pod has been known as Ferranti, GEC-Ferranti/GEC-Marconi, BAE Systems Avionics, and

Selex ES Selex ES was a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, active in the electronics and information technology business, based in Italy and the UK, and formed in January 2013, following Finmeccanica's decision to combine its existing SELEX Elsag and SELEX ...

Replacement

Experience in Afghanistan lead to the realisation that TIALD was outdated, as described by an RAF Wing Commander:

" twas designed in the 1980s, to allow pilots to drop laser guided bombs on targets like bridges, big buildings and aircraft hangars... TIALD as an air interdiction targeting pod is very good and has done this reasonably well over the last decade, as was proved in Deliberate Force (1995), Allied Force (1999), and
Operation Telic Operation Telic (Op TELIC) was the codename under which all of the United Kingdom's military operations in Iraq were conducted between the start of the invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003 and the withdrawal of the last remaining British forces on ...
(2003). Now, however, we need a sensor that is geared more towards urban /nowiki>close air support">close_air_support.html" ;"title="/nowiki>close air support">/nowiki>close air support/nowiki>, where we need to defend particular targets that are very similar to others, like compounds within small towns or villages."

The TIALD pod was replaced by the LITENING targeting pod on Tornados. The Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod, Sniper pod replaced TIALD on Harriers following an urgent operational requirement in 2007.

References

{{reflist Cold War weapons of the United Kingdom Military electronics of the United Kingdom Ferranti General Electric Company Laser ranging Targeting pods