AGM - 62 Walleye The AGM - 62 Walleye is a television - guided glide bomb which was produced by Martin Marietta and used by the United States armed forces during the 1960s . Most had a 250 lb ( 113 kg ) high - explosive warhead ; some had a nuclear warhead . The designation of the " Walleye " as an " air - to - ground missile " is a misnomer , as it is an unpowered bomb with guide avionics , similar to the more modern GBU - 15 . The Walleye was superseded by the AGM - 65 Maverick . History . The Walleye was the first of a family of precision - guided munition s designed to hit targets with minimal collateral damage . This “ smart bomb ” had no propulsion system , but it could be maneuvered via a television assisted guidance system during its glide from an aircraft to the target . As a pilot dove towards a target , a television camera in the nose of the bomb transmitted images to a monitor in the cockpit . Once the pilot acquired a sharp image of the target on his screen , he designated an aim point and released the bomb , which would continue flying toward the designated target on its own . The bomb was a true fire - and - forget system because once launched , the plane could immediately turn away from the aim point . The Walleye maneuvered itself using four large fins . Later versions employed an extended range data link that let pilots keep flying the weapon after its release , and even change aim points during flight . The idea of a TV guided bomb came out of discussions between an eclectic group of civilian engineers at the Naval Ordnance Test Center ( later the Naval Weapons Center ) at China Lake , California . One of the engineers , Norman Kay , built televisions in his home as a hobby . Kay built an iconoscope camera in 1958 that could do a “ funny thing , ” recalled fellow project engineer William H . Woodworth . “ It occurred to him that he could build a little circuit into there that would put a little blip in the picture , and he could make the little blip track things that would move in the picture . ” The two engineers , soon joined by Dave Livingston , Jack Crawford , George Lewis , Larry Brown , Steve Brugler , Bob ( Sam ) Cunningham and several others , decided to research the idea further and quickly secured some seed money from the Navy to advance the concept . Adopting some technology from the AIM - 9 Sidewinder air - to - air missile project and developing other components from scratch , the group developed the bomb in just four years . Among other revolutionary breakthroughs , the group developed the world ’ s first solid - state television camera with no vacuum tubes and the first zero - input - impedance amplifier . The team worked at nights and on weekends to keep the project on track and convince the Navy of its worth . Woodworth was the electronics expert and went so far as to take a year off from work and attend graduate school at his own expense to gain some additional theoretical knowledge needed for the project . Woodworth and Steve Brugler breadboarded the original tracking circuitry . Brugler then did the detailed analysis and design of the tracker for initial production . Larry Brown worked tirelessly to analyze the bomb ’ s flight traits , using an analog - computing instrument . Jack Crawford had an amazing “ intuitive feel for physical phenomenon , ” and could envision many of the flying traits of the bomb before it had even been built . First test and production contract . On 29 January 1963 , a YA - 4B Skyhawk flown by Cdr . J . A . Sickel , dropped the first Walleye at China Lake . The bomb scored a direct hit . Martin received the first production contract for the Walleye in 1966 and the bomb entered service with both the Navy and the U . S . Air Force the following year . The original Walleye I carried a 1 , 100 - pound shaped charge and had a range of . Use during Vietnam War . By May 1967 , Navy pilots had dropped several bombs in Vietnam with great success . On 19 May 1967 , Ho Chi Minh ’ s 77th birthday , a Navy aircraft from the scored a direct hit against the Hanoi power plant with a Walleye . The Navy hit the plant again with the bomb two days later , knocking out Hanoi ’ s major source of power . While softer targets such as power plants proved quite vulnerable to the Walleye , sturdier ones such as North Vietnam ’ s well - constructed railroad bridges could not be downed even with a 1 , 100 - pound weapon . Direct hits by the Walleye against the Thanh Hoa Bridge south of Hanoi in 1967 failed to take down even a single span of this notoriously strong structure . Walleye II , " Fat Albert " . To correct this major deficiency , China Lake developed a 2 , 000 - pound version of the bomb , and deployed it to Vietnam in time for President Richard Nixon ' s Linebacker raids against Hanoi and Haiphong . The new Walleye II , or “ Fat Albert ” as it was nicknamed after the cartoon character , had an extended range data link and could hit targets up to from its launch point . On 27 April 1972 , a flight of eight Air Force fighters , two carrying 2000 - pound laser - guided bomb s and two carrying Walleye IIs , attacked the Thanh Hoa Bridge . Cloud cover prevented the LGBs from being used , but five of the Walleyes locked on , causing heavy damage to the bridge , even though failing to bring down a span . On 13 May , the Air Force finally brought down the bridge with 3 , 000 and 2 , 000 - pound LGBs . The Vietnamese , however , soon repaired the bridge , compelling the Navy and Air Force to fly 13 more missions against the target . On one such mission on 23 October , four A - 7 Corsair pilots from the carrier USS " America " took down the bridge with a combination of Walleye IIs and conventional 2000 - pound bombs . Overall performance . While Walleyes accounted for less than six percent of the precision - guided munitions employed by the U . S . Armed Services during the Vietnam War , the weapons system could achieve excellent results under the right circumstances . The Navy often used the Walleye against the most important , hardest to kill targets . After the war , the Navy continued to employ upgraded versions of the Walleye through Operation Desert Storm .