Abstract: Aiming at the problem of central obstruction and assembly difficulties in the reflective imaging of the airborne dual-band common-aperture photoelectric sighting system, a common-aperture optical system with front-light path refraction imaging was designed. The initial structure of the optical system was calculated using the two-component zoom theory. Based on the Minimum Resolvable Temperature Difference (MRTD) model, the operating distance of infrared system was analyzed, and the compensation residual error of forward image motion was analyzed according to Rayleigh criterion. When the airborne dual-band common-aperture photoelectric aiming optical system worked in the waveband of 0.38-0.76 μm, it can achieve 5× continuous zoom from 36 to 180 mm. When it worked in the 3-5 μm waveband, it can realize three fields of view transformations, and the ratio of the three focal lengths of the three fields is 3. The working F number was 4. The design results show that, in the working environment of −40-60 ℃, the optical system undergoes optical passive athermalization treatment, which meets the requirements of system imaging quality.