October 9, 2010: South Africa has received the first of several Digital Joint Reconnaissance Pods for their recon aircraft. This is a digital version of an older, and popular, recon pod that used film. The digital version has two digital cameras and an infrared one. The Digital Joint Reconnaissance Pod will be used on the Gripen aircraft South Africa has recently bought. Digital cameras are superior to film cameras because no film development is required, and digital images are more easily analyzed using software, rather than depending mostly on human photo interpreters. The infrared sensor records everything in the aircraft's flight path, horizon-to-horizon. The pod records many gigabytes of data to onboard storage devices, and can also transmit data immediately to a ground station.