Pave Penny
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The Lockheed Martin AN/AAS-35(V) Pave Penny is a laser spot tracker carried by US Air Force attack aircraft and fighter-bombers enabling them to track a laser spot on the ground. It is a receiver only, allowing the pilot to see which targets are marked by a laser designator.
Pave Penny does not produce a laser beam and cannot be used to designate targets, designed for use with laser designators on the ground or on other aircraft. PAVE was later used as an backronym meaning Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Description
Developed in the mid-1970s, Pave Penny was based on the earlier AN/AVQ-11 Pave Sword laser tracker used on USAF F-4 Phantom IIs during the Vietnam War, miniaturized using solid-state electronics.
The compact Template:Cvt pod weighing only Template:Cvt is a simple laser spot tracker that searches for reflected laser light from other laser designators (used by friendly air or ground forces) and displays that target information on the aircraft heads-up display (HUD). Unlike the laser ranger and marked target seeker systems common to European aircraft, or the more sophisticated AN/ASQ-228 ATFLIR, TIALD, and LANTIRN designators, Pave Penny does not contain a laser. It can recognize specific laser designation signals based on pre-determined four-digit codes encoded into the laser pulse, allowing it to seek out particular targets and ignore others (to avoid, for example, several aircraft hitting the same target). There is no range-finding capability. The Pave Penny's nominal range is Template:Cvt, although effective range is considerably shorter.
The Pave Penny pod was used by USAF A-7D Corsair II aircraft, fuselage-mounted beneath the engine intake, and the A-10 Thunderbolt II, mounted on an external pylon designed specifically for the pod. It was also previously used by some F-16C/D Fighting Falcon aircraft,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> although most now use the LANTIRN system instead permitting self-designation. Some Pave Penny pods were also supplied to Singapore, where they were used on A-4SU Super Skyhawks.Template:Cn