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ISIK participants attend a pre-mission brief April 6, 2015, at the 3rd Main Jet Base in Konya, Turkey. ISIK, an international combat search and rescue event hosted by the Turkish armed forces, includes participants from the United States, Spain, Romania, Hungary and Azerbaijan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Laura Balch)

US, allies train in Turkey

  • Published
  • By Capt. Laura Balch
  • Office of Defense Cooperation-Turkey Public Affairs
KONYA, Turkey --  The Turkish armed forces hosted the third annual ISIK event, an international combat search and rescue event, from March 30 to April 10, 2015, at the 3rd Main Jet Base in Konya, Turkey.

U.S. Air Force personnel from the 352nd Special Operations Wing stationed at RAF Mildenhall, England, are the main U.S. participants in the event. Other nations participating in ISIK include Spain, Romania, Hungary and Azerbaijan.

The purpose of this two-week CSAR event is to highlight the interoperability among the participating nations' special operations and conventional forces.

"It's not just about interoperability, though, it's about trust," said Romanian air force Lt. Col. Cristian Andries, 95th Air Base detachment commander. "We have to trust each other during the fight. In the beginning of training events you don't know the other people. After a few flights, we can trust each other to do the mission. Even with some difference in our tactics, training and procedures, we can make it so we can work together."

The event's training scenarios primarily focus on two skillsets: personnel recovery, and airfield establishment and control.

Personnel recovery training scenarios include recovering downed pilots, isolated personnel and hostages. These scenarios utilize a variety of tactics and techniques including planning and executing mountain and water rescues as well as survival, evasion, resistance and escape situations.

Establishing and controlling an airfield involves personnel obtaining a piece of land used as an airfield while regulating aircraft movement in and out of that location. Accomplishing this can require a number of skills like military free fall, tactical navigation, and using various infiltration and exfiltration techniques.

The 352nd SOW proposed the inclusion of airfield establishment and control in this year's event, which is the first time this skillset has been included in ISIK's three-year history.

"We asked to include airfield establishment and control for two reasons," said a 321st Special Tactics Squadron air/land integration manager. "First, it's one of our core mission sets, so we try to train for this at every opportunity, and our Spanish partners wanted to train with us on this skillset. Second, this capability allows us to establish a transfer location for patients so we can move them from a helicopter or CV-22 onto a larger aircraft with further reach. This is not something that all of our allies can perform, so we thought ISIK would be a good opportunity for us to demonstrate this skillset to others."

While the majority of the event's training emphasizes ground operations, there is also a large air component to ISIK.

The 352nd SOW provided three CV-22B Osprey and one MC-130J Commando II aircraft for this event. Other nations are contributing a total of 26 rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, including IAR 330, Mi-17, AS-532, S-70 and AH-1 P/W helicopters and an EADS CASA C-295.

The number and variety of aircraft involved in ISIK have grown over the years, as well as the number of participants. These changes have impacted many aspects of the event, to include the planning.

"In past events, we pre-planned everything for all the participants," said Turkish air force Lt. Col. H. Saffet Celikel, Anatolian Eagle Training Center squadron commander. "This time, all the participants were involved in the planning. This allowed us to exchange ideas and improve communication. Each nation uses its own tactics, and some are experts, but we have one mission here - to rescue people - and so the purpose of this event is to bring everyone together to share tactics and ideas and improve our ability to conduct the mission."