For inserting or recovering troops, giving fire support or casualty evacuation, since the intervention in Afghanistan began helicopters have again occupied an important place in operations. Newly developed technologies have permitted the optimised use of helicopters in the Air Force. Lessons learned from operations, together with joint training, have given a central role to helicopters in the Air Force, and also recently in the Army.
Helicopters in the Air Force
The employment of Air Force helicopters has been through contrasted periods, but they have always proved invaluable in operations through their quality and the skills of the crews who fly them.
The first period covered all the operations conducted in Indochina and subsequently in Algeria. Air Force helicopters were by then already engaged in a number of types of missions that are still conducted today, as in the Afghan theatre: surveillance and reconnaissance, MEDEVAC, during which helicopter pilots, air force physicians and flight nurses have distinguished themselves, Combat Search and Rescue missions, the first of which took place in Indochina and paved the way for current-type CSAR missions, but also all combat support, fire support, transport support and intelligence missions, etc.
From the end of the operations conducted in Algeria to the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War, Air Force helicopters were mainly refocused on rescue, due to the operations, in particular with metropolitan and overseas SATER or SAMAR missions, population rescue and transport missions.
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