Nav pod deal saves millions Published June 4, 2010 By Wayne Crenshaw 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- A team at Robins worked to secure a unique contract, leading to the exchange of older avionics for state-of-the-art equivalents and effectively saving the Air Force more than $22 million. For its efforts, the Precision Attack System Program Office was recognized last week by the 21st Century Partnership with its Team Quality Award. The award is given twice per year to recognize a unit on base which implements a cost-saving initiative. The Precision Attack Program Office, which is part of the Global Logistics Support Center, orchestrated an exchange with Lockheed Martin in which it returned 45 first generation Low-Altitude Navigation & Targeting Infrared for Night, commonly known as LANTIRN, navigation pods that would no longer be used. In return, the Air Force received a credit from Lockheed for 14 Sniper Advanced Targeting pods with third generation Forward-Looking Infrared (Radar) technology. The cost savings of the exchange was calculated at $8 million, but was actually much more than that, said Marty Hutchinson, the flight chief. That figure was the result of calculating the old pods' depreciated value at $14.6 million, with the $8 million being the difference between that and the value of the new pods. But since the old pods were never going to be used again they had no real value for the Air Force, Hutchinson said, and in fact cost money to store and would ultimately have been destroyed, which also carries a cost. So in effect, the deal saved more than $22 million. "It (the exchange) was the result of a lot of hard work by our team members but worth the effort to get additional Sniper pods to the warfighter," said Hutchinson.