Two Legion infrared search-and-track pods, each hung on a separate F-16, have pooled what they see in flight, Lockheed Martin says. The pods shared target tracks over a new pod-to-pod data link, and the company reports that the shared data improved track accuracy. Legion is a passive sensor: it follows targets by their heat without transmitting.
The jets flew from Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, in what Lockheed Martin describes as a series of recent flight tests with the Air National Guard’s test center. The data link, called HiveLink, was a pre-production version developed by L3Harris. Lockheed Martin announced the result on Sept. 16, 2026, without giving the dates the flights took place.
Lockheed Martin’s Sept. 16 release says that “in flight, the pods successfully connected via HiveLink and increased track accuracy by leveraging the shared data.” It describes the benefit as near-instantaneous range to multiple targets, “giving aircrew rapid ‘depth perception’ to prioritize the contacts that matter most.” Those are the company’s characterizations; the release does not publish test data.
What Legion is
Legion is a passive infrared search-and-track system, formerly known as IRST21, according to the Sept. 16 release. Lockheed Martin’s Legion Pod product page describes it as “a multi-function sensor system that supports collaborative targeting operations in radar-denied environments,” built around an IRST21 sensor and a processor in a 16-inch-diameter pod, and says the pod has completed flight tests on F-16 and F-15C aircraft.
The sensor family has a long service record. The release states that Legion builds on Lockheed Martin’s legacy IRST systems, which have accumulated more than 300,000 flight hours on F-14 and F-15 platforms.
The Legion line has also found an export customer. In a Feb. 2, 2026 release, Lockheed Martin announced a $328.5 million Foreign Military Sales contract for Legion-ES, an embedded IRST version for the F-16, for Taiwan’s air force.
A second attempt at the pod-to-pod link
Sharing tracks between pods is not a new goal for the program. In a June 2021 feature, Lockheed Martin said it had demonstrated a pod-to-pod datalink with the same test center at the Northern Edge exercise in Alaska in May 2021. That version used the Tactical Targeting Network Technology waveform, and the company said then that “the next steps in this process include flight testing with F-16s.”
The 2026 test is that F-16 step, with a different radio. L3Harris’s HiveLink product sheet, posted in June 2026, describes a “small-form-factor, high-assurance, dual-channel software-defined radio” weighing under 5 pounds, with self-forming mesh networking of up to 32 nodes. It lists targeting pods, collaborative combat aircraft and munitions among intended uses. Those are the manufacturer’s specifications, not results from the Tucson flights.
The test center behind the flights
The Guard unit involved does this kind of work for a living. The Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center, known as AATC, is based at Tucson Air National Guard Base, according to its fact sheet. The center began in 1981 as the Fighter Weapons Office and handles operational and developmental test and evaluation for Air Reserve Component weapons systems, including F-16s.
Cristin Stengel, Lockheed Martin’s program director for Legion, framed the result in the Sept. 16 release: “Working side by side with the Air National Guard and AATC, we are turning proven infrared search-and-track into a networked, passive capability that is ready now.”
What the record supports is narrower than “ready now.” Two F-16s linked their pods in flight tests using a pre-production radio, and the company reports better track accuracy. No production contract for HiveLink-equipped Legion pods, and no fielding date for the networked capability, appears in the Sept. 16 release.
Top image: An Arizona Air National Guard 162nd Fighter Wing F-16 at Tucson in 1994. Image Credit: MSgt. Meneguin, Defense Visual Information Center — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.