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First Use of LORAN Technology for Airstrikes

September 21, 1971

1971-09-21_Dropping_Loran_Bombs_1973
1971-09-21_Dropping_Loran_Bombs_1973
Three F-4 Phantom fighters and three A-7 Corsair attack aircraft drop LORAN-guided bombs during a mission over Vietnam in March 1973. (National Archives)

In extremely poor weather, about 200 fighter-bomber aircraft attack petroleum storage facilities and other targets near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. Specially equipped F-4 II Phantom pathfinders use Long Range Electronic Navigation (LORAN) beacons to make accurate strikes. No aircraft are lost and the strikes destroy about 350,000 gallons of fuel.

LORAN technology employs multiple ground-based transmitters, which communicate with aircrafts’ onboard systems to allow them to fix their position and coordinate attacks. The system is later employed extensively in the LINEBACKER missions. LORAN heralds a significant expansion of U.S. Air Force capabilities in poor-weather and nighttime missions.1

Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 202; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 681; Carl Berger, ed., The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1977), 92.