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AIR FORCE Magazine / August 200384

HE Air Force has found a newhome for its vital combatsearch and rescue mission.At present, most of the forces,

equipment, and oversight of CSARbelong to Air Combat Command.However, service leaders have con-cluded that the mission fits better inthe world of special operations. On

Combat search and rescue soon will be part ofthe special operations world.

CSAR,Under New ManagementBy Adam J. Hebert, Senior Editor

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USAF

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An HH-60 departs Tallil Air Base, Iraq, after depositing a pararescueman.

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AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2003 85

CSAR at work: An A-10 pilot shot down near Baghdad returns to base accompa- nied by his heavily armed rescuers. This was one of 20 successful recoveries for 

Iraqi Freedom’s joint search and rescue center.

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SAF

photobySSgt.ShaneA.Cuomo

According to Moseley’s “By theNumbers” assessment of the air cam-paign, Operation Iraqi Freedom’s  joint search and rescue center wasthe largest JSRC ever, and it assistedin 20 rescues, saving 73 personnel.

Falling ShortTwice in recent years, search and

rescue limitations complicated com-bat operations, however.

In 1999, Gen. John P. Jumper,now Air Force Chief of Staff, com-manded United States Air Forces inEurope. He said that USAF “acutely

felt” the lack of a permanent CSARpresence in Europe during Opera-tion Allied Force, the air war overKosovo. The successful rescues of downed F-16 and F-117 pilots dur-ing that conflict were achieved byspecial operations forces, not dedi-cated rescue assets.

USAFE has since stationed a CSARunit at NAS Keflavik, Iceland. TheCSAR units assigned to the PacificAir Forces and USAFE will remainin those commands.

More recently, ACC’s CSAR unitswere slow to arrive in Afghanistan

AFSOC has already planned to modify its MC-130H Combat Talon II airlifters,such as this one, to provide much needed additional capability to aerial refuel CSAR helicopters.

in 2001 for Operation Enduring Free-dom. The need for AFSOC to fill inled to the successful push for change.In an interview, Lt. Gen. Paul V.Hester, AFSOC commander, saidgetting CSAR into position aroundAfghanistan was the final prepara-tory step to be completed. The initialrescue presence was provided by

special operations forces trained toperform rescues as a “tangential mis-sion,” Hester said.

It took a month for ACC’s searchand rescue units to fully assume theEnduring Freedom CSAR mission,officials said.

It is hoped the change in oversightwill bring an end to these types of situations.

Hester said AFSOC will look forways to get US-based rescue forcesto the combat theaters faster, but

that the timing problem will not van-

Oct. 1, the mission passes to AirForce Special Operations Command.

Air Force leaders believe the movewill strengthen CSAR operations,make them more efficient, and raisetheir profile by putting them in asmaller organization.

The idea of shifting search andrescue out of ACC had been studiedfor more than a year. Ultimately, theAir Force concluded that the “syner-gies” to be achieved with the moveoutweighed any negative factors,ACC commander Gen. Hal M. Horn-burg told  Air Force Magazine.

“Better for the community over-all” is how Hornburg described theoutcome of the transfer.

The move brings together, underone command, most of the equip-ment and personnel needed to per-form rescues and puts them in closeproximity to commandos, some of 

whom perform similar types of mis-sions.

AFSOC already has search andrescue as a secondary mission, withspecial ops units filling in when dedi-cated CSAR forces are not avail-able. This tends to happen a lot, assearch and rescue capabilities areamong the most heavily tasked inthe Air Force.

Commanders frequently seek theability to recover combat personneltrapped in enemy territory. In Iraq,

CSAR was heavily used and highlysuccessful, according to a report byLt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, theGulf War II air commander.

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AIR FORCE Magazine / August 200386

AFSOC will soon possess two aging helicopters frequently used for rescues. Like the HH-60, the MH-53 (pictured) is due for replacement. The Air Force is developing the CV-22 tilt-rotor as successor to the MH-53 Pave Low and favors a medium-lift, conven- tional helicopter as a Pave Hawk successor.

ish on Oct. 1 when the changeoveroccurs. If the problems involved ingetting assets deployed were easy tosolve, he noted, “ACC would havesolved them already.”

Officials say the move will alsobroaden career opportunities. Withrelated missions aligned under AFSOC,there will be more leadership oppor-tunities for rescuers and helicoptercrewmen, Hester said. This will cre-ate a much broader leadership pathfor CSAR members, because the res-cue mission will not be an after-thought in AFSOC as it was in ACC.

There will be a need to updatetraining operations, said Hester.AFSOC will work with Air Educa-tion and Training Command to de-termine how search and rescue train-ing should be integrated with thetraining regimes of conventionalcommandos, he said.

AFSOC will be given control of Moody AFB, Ga., a former fighterfacility currently operated by ACC.The 347th Rescue Wing, which hasHH-60s and the HC-130s used forCSAR refueling, is the host wing atMoody and will transfer to AFSOC.

The CSAR switch will affect about9,000 Air Force members. Only a

few, however, will be changing lo-

cations. Hester said most people af-fected will simply change patches.The change includes shifting:

91 positions to Davis–MonthanAFB, Ariz.

53 positions to Hurlburt Field,Fla.31 positions to Nellis AFB, Nev.

According to Hester, the Air Forcerealignment had no connection withthe Pentagon’s decision this year toincrease the size and authority of USSpecial Operations Command. TheCSAR units will continue to be or-ganized, trained, and equipped asAir Force rescue assets and will notbelong to SOCOM.

Long in FluxCombat search and rescue had been

in flux for years. There had beendiscussions about moving CSAR outof ACC throughout the 1990s, butthe right time never seemed to ar-rive.

Officials had been debating theproper home for CSAR since at least1990, when AFSOC was created outof the former 23rd Air Force in amove to increase the role of specialoperations.

More recently, the Air Force has

carried out various administrative

changes to better CSAR’s lot withinthe Air Combat Command structure.These included moving Air ForceReserve Command rescue equipmentin Oregon to an active duty unit atDavis–Monthan, a change that willbe completed later this year. (TheAFRC unit is switching from a CSARto an aerial refueling mission.)

Officials approved a service lifeextension program for the oldest of the HH-60 Pave Hawks to ensurethey remain workable until a nextgeneration recovery vehicle becomesavailable around 2010. And the sizeof the HC-130 refueling fleet is be-ing increased through the conver-sion of 10 WC-130s to the tankerconfiguration. These conversionsshould be complete by 2006.

A recent ACC study recommendedreplacing the 105 lightweight HH-60s used for CSAR with 132 me-

dium-lift helicopters. Use of thenew helicopters will not only im-prove aircraft availability but alsoaddress several HH-60 deficienciessuch as limited range and smallpayload.

For the time being, however, AFSOCwill have possession of two aging ro-torcraft platforms that are due forreplacement. In addition to the HH-60s, the MH-53 Pave Lows used totransport commandos are also agingout. The Air Force backs separate

programs to replace those aircraft,given the different missions the PaveHawks and Pave Lows are asked toperform.

The V-22 tilt-rotor that is expectedto replace the MH-53 was also con-sidered for the CSAR mission, butwas passed over in favor of a moretraditional, medium-lift replacementfor the HH-60. Hester noted that thestudy recommendation calls for an“off the shelf” purchase, unlike theground-up development and acqui-sition of the V-22.

In spite of the recent and plannedchanges, CSAR remained an over-stressed, overtasked mission area thatwas never able to get to the top of ACC’s list of priorities.

Hornburg acknowledged that, overthe years, ACC did “a less than ad-equate job” of budgeting for CSAR,even though ACC units are most inneed of rescue support. After all,pilots in the combat air forces are indanger of going down in enemy ter-ritory almost every time they per-

form a wartime mission. ■