US Air Force: downed airmen may need to get themselves to safety

Speaking at an US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center seminar, Air Combat Command General Mark D Kelly has expressed the future difficulties facing combat search and rescue (CSAR), citing hardship with long distances, expanses of water, and the ‘speed, the vulnerability, and the range of our current rescue platforms’.

As such, Kelly stated that Air Force Command is ‘looking at it from the lens of […] how much can the isolated personnel get themselves out or get themselves to a place where they can be recovered, as much as how the recovery force is going to get to them’.

Building CSAR on Fairchild A-10s

Typically, US Air Force CSAR operations have been conducted with a Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt flying top cover for the recovery and management the movement of CSAR assets within the rescue area. Kelly said the A-10 was a ‘great’ choice in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that maintaining its current fleet into the early 2030s would hamper future CSAR, especially as the A-10 lacks the stealth capabilities of a fifth-generation jet such as the Lockheed Martin F-35.

Kelly continued: “The fact of the matter is, as we sit here today, I have exactly zero A-10s in the Middle East, for a couple of reasons. One, the distance is too far to go from our Middle East basing to places like Afghanistan, over the horizon. Two, the threat in and around Syria—the Russians’ air defense systems—[is] too great to operate in, so we essentially had to bring them home.”

While Kelly noted the ‘phenomenal performance’ of the A-10, ‘there’s an ever-decreasing of the niche areas where it can operate, day in and day out’. Kelly concluded by identifying China as the US Air Force’s ‘pacing threat’. Kelly continued: “If we’re going to keep pace with what they’re doing, you’re not going to do it by refurbishing a fleet of 40-year-old, single-mission, 210-knot airplanes. You’re just not, regardless how much they’re loved and the great performance they’ve done.”

CSAR remains an ongoing priority across the world, including with the Leonardo AW149 recently making its first appearance in the Egyptian Navy.