Having the power to recover personnel from combat situations is an essential element of any military operation. Roberto Yañez and Alex Rodriguez report on the annual joint exercise in Spain.
Using airpower to save downed crew or to extract military forces is a complex operation that requires co-ordination and practice. Each year, various European nations come together to train and hone their skills in a key exercise.
This year’s Air Centric Personnel Recovery Operatives Course (APROC) took place in the first half of June at Albacete Air Base, Spain. It was organised by the European Personnel Recovery Centre (EPRC) with the support of the Tactical Leadership Program (TLP). The principal objective of this annual course is to qualify aircrew as rescue mission commanders (RMC) and to train extraction personnel in the common tactics, techniques and procedures used by a joint force when undertaking personnel recovery (PR) operations.
PR operations training started around 2001, when the European Air Group (EAG) organised combat search and rescue (SAR) training. Initially, its operations were established for analysis, studies and the creation of documentation. It was decided that this work should be undertaken by a centre dedicated to…
