Military Reporter at the Grassroots | Rescuing Pilots: First Train to 'Pull Teeth from the Tiger's Mouth'

A reporter observes a new scene in armed search and rescue at an aviation brigade of the Northern Theater Command Air Force——

Rescuing Pilots: First Train to 'Pull Teeth from the Tiger's Mouth'

■ PLA Daily Reporters Zhang Tiannan, Wang Zhenjiang, Gao Liang

Helicopter search and rescue training (file photo). Photo by Yang Pan.

Summer. The shore of Bohai Bay. The sun blazes overhead. At the training ground of an aviation brigade under the Northern Theater Command Air Force, reporters witnessed an armed search and rescue exercise.

"A pilot has ejected and is awaiting rescue in a certain sea area!" The special situation arrived without warning, and officers and soldiers of a battalion under the brigade immediately rushed to their combat positions. On the airfield runway, salt-laden sea wind mixed with the roar of engines poured into the reporters' ears. Several helicopters stood in formation, ready for takeoff.

"Take off!" With a single order from tower commander Wang Bo, the warbirds shot into the sky and flew toward the horizon where sea meets sky, live ammunition mounted beneath their fuselages glinting silver.

After completing a concealed penetration, the armed escort helicopter formation arrived first over the target sea area. Pilots gripped their control sticks and continuously adjusted flight attitude; crew members, drawing on information provided by the tower and factoring in sea-surface weather conditions, immediately conducted low-altitude reconnaissance, rapidly searched for "enemy" threat targets, and established the optimal attack flight path.

The navigator continuously reported navigation parameters, and the aircraft commander precisely locked onto the target based on the guidance. At the air commander's order, in an instant, several helicopters launched successive diving attacks. Rockets screamed outward, skimming the sea at low altitude and striking the "enemy" threat targets with precision. The target area erupted in fire and smoke.

The rescue helicopter then moved forward, executing a nimble lateral approach into the target airspace. Aerial rescue personnel used hoists, cables, and other equipment to conduct a hoist rescue, successfully recovering the "downed pilot" and completing the mission.

"On the battlefield, the enemy will not let you calmly walk away with the person you're rescuing. In many cases, the search and rescue operation itself is a fight to 'seize people' under a hail of bullets. Only by training armed search and rescue capabilities hard in peacetime can we open a reliable 'lifeline' in wartime." As the smoke gradually cleared, Wang Bo—forehead beaded with sweat—explained to reporters that armed clearance of the search and rescue area is the key difficult training subject for them. "Battlefield search and rescue is like 'snatching life from the tiger's mouth'—this requires us not only to be able to 'rescue' but also to be able to 'fight.' You have to first have the ability to pull out the 'tiger's teeth'!"

"Why train to 'pull teeth from the tiger's mouth'?" The brigade leadership, who had been observing the training nearby, picked up the thread: "In wartime, the target awaiting rescue may well be inside an 'enemy' blockade zone, requiring fire to clear obstacles first."

"In the past, helicopter search and rescue training was organized mainly around locating targets and was often conducted under known conditions—like practicing skills inside a 'glass dome.' It lacked construction of a realistic battlefield environment and could not withstand the test of actual combat." His tone turned somber as he continued: in earlier research, they had found that some officers and soldiers harbored the mistaken view that "rescue forces have limited utility in the operational chain," believing themselves to be a support element, a reserve force—a "supporting role on the battlefield"—which led to low training enthusiasm and insufficient drive for innovation.

"At its root, the actual-combat orientation had drifted off course; training was not being organized and conducted from the standpoint of actual-combat requirements." This leader said with firm conviction that combat readiness training must discard short-sighted thinking: it must both achieve immediate training results and, taking a long-term view, forge hard actual-combat skills, truly developing the solid capability to "be able to assist in peacetime, be able to rescue in wartime."

It is precisely this clear-eyed understanding that has driven the brigade onto a path of breaking through toward a warfighting transformation——

The brigade Party committee firmly established a warfighting orientation, leading officers and soldiers to exert effort toward war, consolidate strengths and remedy weaknesses, and strengthen armed search and rescue training against the backdrop of frontline rescue—training both rescue skills and genuine fighting and resistance. At the same time, Party committee members went deep to the front lines, leading officers and soldiers to transform their thinking through discussion and analysis and through planning and studying for war, breaking down erroneous perceptions such as the "supporting role on the battlefield"…… A series of practical measures led officers and soldiers to a profound understanding: on the battlefield there are no bystanders; in combat there is no distinction between lead and supporting roles; wherever the search and rescue force reaches, that is where the boundary of combat expands.

During the interview, a battalion officer told reporters about a joint search and rescue exercise they had organized not long ago with neighboring Army and Navy units.

That day, faced with the special situation of "a pilot ejecting in an 'enemy' fire danger zone," the neighboring units first dispatched unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct forward reconnaissance, precisely identifying "enemy" threat targets and transmitting the information back; a certain type of fixed-wing aircraft, after rapidly locking onto the target location using that information, transmitted the situational picture in real time to the helicopter formation. The formation then struck decisively, delivering fire against the "enemy."

After the "enemy" threat targets were eliminated, the helicopter formation rapidly switched mission modes: signal search, precise location, egress and hoist rescue…… A series of actions flowed seamlessly, successfully recovering the "pilot" and opening a "lifeline" from the front line to the rear.

This joint search and rescue model featuring multi-type aircraft complementing one another is a microcosm of the brigade's ongoing push to transform its training. As actual-combat training advances in depth, the brigade's armed search and rescue capability is accelerating its expansion toward integrated system-of-systems operations (体系作战): they are actively conducting search and rescue training with "armed aircraft + rescue aircraft" formations, exploring collaborative training models featuring multi-aircraft complementarity such as "fixed-wing aircraft conducting forward search and location + helicopters following up with precision rescue"; they routinely conduct joint cross-branch training, from basic flight training and information communications to complex offensive-defensive confrontation, comprehensively improving system-of-systems coordination capability through actual-combat, actual-training.

By the time the interview concluded it was nearly dusk, and one by one the warbirds that had completed the day's training returned and landed smoothly.

The reporter looked up. On the outer wall of the tower, the combat slogan "War is right before our eyes" shone brilliantly in the glow of the setting sun.