Air Force rethinks combat rescue for major war — but what will it look like?

In the opening days of a future war against China, an F-35 pilot on a mission is tracked and shot down by air defenses. He safely ejects — but is trapped deep inside enemy territory.

Standing between him and his comrades: A bristling array of surface-to-air missiles, radars, enemy fighters and other defenses. If the U.S. Air Force sends a traditional combat search and rescue helicopter into that highly contested airspace, the chances are high it gets shot down, leaving the service with several more pilots and pararescuemen in need of their own rescuing.

Instead, the Air Force tries something new. It sends an autonomous drone — a self-piloting air taxi — whose smaller electric propellers let it operate much more quietly than a helicopter with massive rotors. If the drone is spotted and shot down, the Air Force hasn’t lost another airman and can try again with another drone to save the pilot. His rescue is still far from certain. But at least he’s got a chance.

This is one way search and rescue operations could play out in the years to come, as the Air Force tries to figure out how it will fight its next major war. As the service shifts from the last 20 years of fighting in the Middle East toward a potential conflict against China or Russia and their modern militaries, it needs to change how it rescues downed pilots and other personnel to account for the far more complex threat environments they’d face.

Combat search and rescue airmen in the next war will likely have to navigate a contested airspace with enemy surface-to-air missiles, radar and hostile aircraft. The missions could come days — perhaps even weeks — after the crash, as the rescuers wait for an opportunity to go in. And there could be much more rescuing of downed pilots from the open sea.

The first major sign of how combat rescue is changing: The Air Force said when it released its fiscal 2023 budget that it wants to trim one-third of its planned purchase of HH-60W Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopters, the successor to the HH-60G Pave Hawk.