Lawmakers want details on Air Force's Combat Rescue Helicopter fielding plan

House and Senate conference members released a fiscal year 2020 defense policy bill Monday night that would require the Air Force to prepare a report on its fielding plan for the new Combat Rescue Helicopter program stemming from schedule issues with a restoration effort for legacy platforms.

"It is the sense of Congress that, given delays to Operational Loss Replacement (OLR) program fielding and the on-time fielding of Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH), the Air National Guard should retain additional HH-60G helicopters at Air National Guard locations," the conference report states.

The HH-60G Pave Hawks are the Air Force's aging search-and-rescue aircraft that the CRH program, which entered low-rate initial production in September, is intended to replace. The OLR program aims to replenish the service's HH-60G fleet to its authorized size.

The CRH fielding plan was a provision the Senate version of the defense policy legislation contained but the House version omitted. Now that conference members included it in their bill, the Air Force would have to submit its CRH fielding plan to the defense committees no later than 45 days after the bill is enacted.

The report should describe the difference in capabilities between the HH60-G, OLR and CRH helicopters, costs and risks of changing the CRH fielding plan to reduce inventory shortfalls and opportunities for accelerating the program within the current contract.

It should further detail operational risks and benefits of fielding the CRH to the active component first.

This analysis would include how the separate fielding plan would affect deployment schedules, the capabilities active units with the CRH would have that reserve units with OLR would not have, and an assessment of potential costs and benefits resulting from accelerating CRH fielding to all units through more funding in the years ahead.

In addition to the fielding plan, the defense policy bill would require the Air Force secretary to prepare a report on the strategy to sustain training for initial-entry reserve HH-60G pilots after active units receive all their CRHs.

This report would be due to the congressional defense committees no later than 45 days after the defense authorization bill is enacted.