On April 11, crewmembers from the 457th Air Expeditionary Group dropped its payload on key targets in Iraq, putting to use modern technology on one of the service’s oldest aircrafts.

The technology, called Litening II precision targeting pod system, lets the radar-navigator use a laser designator to “paint” specific targets, see them before bombs drop, and then provides the aircraft’s five-member crew immediate feedback, crewmembers said Wednesday during a teleconference piped in from the area of operation to the Pentagon.

While the technology itself isn’t new — it has been used on the Air Force’s F-16 Fighting Falcons and Marine Corps’ AV-8 Harriers for years — putting the capability on the B-52 Stratofortress bomber is.

“We can estimate in real-time the nature of the target, identify friendly or collateral damage concerns, or decline a target if it’s not fit for strike,” said Reservist Lt. Col. Bill Floyd, the radar navigator who is attached to the 917th Reserve Wing based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

Litening II, a $1.4 million system, comes with day and night cameras mounted on the bottom of a wing that projects images of the world below onto a 10-by-10-inch screen used by the radar navigator.

“It gives the warfighter an extra bullet in his holster,” said Lt. Col. Rob Hyde, the co-pilot, and one of two of the five-man crew who is active duty.

Targeting information can come from a number of sources, from ground troops to pre-planned coordinates pinpointed in advance by combat leaders.

Constant upgrades to the B-52s, one of the oldest in the Air Force’s inventory, greatly extend the life of the aircraft, said Reservist Lt. Col. Keith Schultz, the aircraft commander for the historical mission. The aircraft used during the April 11 mission rolled off the assembly line in 1961. The use of the technology on the B-52 “makes us a more viable weapon” and more diverse, Schultz said.

The crew had just completed its last round of testing with the equipment, training that was expedited, in part, for use of the system in the Iraqi conflict. Testing concluded at the end of March and had been done at Barksdale, Schultz said.

Crews compressed a typically 2-year testing cycle into a mere 6 months to get the technology up and running on the B-52, he said. But he maintained that safety was not compromised, and instead, it was a matter of cutting out waiting times for training ranges and compressing crewmembers’ schedules.