After more than two decades of maintaining the Air Force’s Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) targeting pod systems, the 388th Fighter Wing’s LANTIRN pod maintenance shop at Hill AFB, Utah, has been dissolved. The change is part of the unit’s transition to F-35s; Air Force plans call for Hill to eventually have three Active Duty F-35 squadrons. The LANTIRN is used on F-15E and F-16C/Ds, and the 388th was the first unit to fly an F-16 with the LANTIRN system into combat, during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. At its peak, the Hill shop maintained 276 pods, and the unit had a 92-?percent mission-capable rate, said MSgt. Erica Fox, assistant avionics flight chief in the 388th Fighter Wing’s Component Maintenance Squadron. As part of the transition, the airmen who previously maintained LANTIRN pods have been trained for F-35 avionics maintenance, or moved to the wing’s electronic warfare section.
South Korea conducted the final live-fire drill with its F-4 Phantom II and AGM-142 missiles before retiring the two defense assets in June, amid the largest U.S.-Korea Aerial Exercise in full swing.