Combat search and rescue: the United States Air Force has written the book on combat search and rescue (Csar). The Pentagon's current rethink is only the latest chapter in a long story of budgetary feasts and famines, and hard-won operational lessons being forgotten and expensively relearned.

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Combat search and rescue: the United States Air Force has written the book on combat search and rescue (Csar). The Pentagon's current rethink is only the latest chapter in a long story of budgetary feasts and famines, and hard-won operational lessons being forgotten and expensively relearned.

In May 2009 Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, formally cancelled the US Air Force's $ 15 billion, 146-aircraft Combat Search and Rescue Replacement Vehicle (Csar-X) programme. Primarily intended to recover downed aircrew and isolated personnel (IP) from hostile or denied territory, its secondary roles included humanitarian relief and the insertion/extraction of combat forces. It was second in priority only to the KC-X tanker in US Air Force acquisitions.

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, ordered Barry Watts, Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation, to re-evaluate Csar needs in the context of joint force capabilities. Watts was to report by 1 September on the need (or otherwise) for Csar-X.

History

The US Army Air Forces...

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