Air Force Materiel Command personnel at Robins AFB, Ga., are about halfway through Phase 1 of USAF’s new Sniper pod program. Lockheed Martin originally designed the next generation Sniper targeting pod for use on fighters in a traditional bombs-on-target role. However, it has proved enormously successful in both Iraq and Afghanistan as an intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance device. (Read “Pilots Praise New F-15E Targeting Pods” here.) Personnel at AFMC’s Warner Robins Air Logistics Center gained a workload of about 4,300 hours when it took on the Sniper program in a work/share partnership with Lockheed. By June 2006, the ALC expects to enter Phase 2—increasing its workload to more than 7,000 hours—in which it will handle electro-optical test and repair. Lockheed technicians are training the ALC Sniper workforce eventually to handle the majority of repair work.
Air Force exercises in the Indo-Pacific may soon get even bigger and more robust, as lawmakers move to invest more than $620 million in such efforts. The bulk of that money, contained in a $150 billion reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress, is $532.6 million for earmarked for…