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FYI....Great SAR Missions, for those not old enough to have been to SEA (Vietnam) or have read AF SAR History.... "Bat 21", LTC Gene Hambleton, April 1972. 11 Days, 1000+ Sorties, 8 Aircraft destroyed, 11 Airmen Killed and 2 POWS. "Oyster 01", Captain Roger Locher, June 1972, 23 days, 150+ Aircraft, rescued only 40 miles from Hanoi, no Airmen Killed.

An Israeli website is saying that he was knocked unconscious during the landing (makes sense if he had to do a PLF in rough rocky terrain), which would help explain the initial delay in contact which likely complicated things greatly. Lucky he didn't break a leg instead. Same website also claims that he evaded for around a dozen miles and ended up climbing a 7K ridge to get away from Iranian forces. That's a great reminder for dudes to keep in shape. You never know when your or your loved ones' survival might depend on it. New fighter pilot PFT; 12 mile evasion ending in a 7k climb with no warning. Ready set go!

Core mission all of AFSOC sued to train to in nearly every exercise (Bilat/Multi-lat), prior to OEF/OIF. As we drew down in both the command re-energized this type of training and I am here to tell you this is normal bizness for AFSOC and the SOAR. I will defer to the experts but here is my guess...a combination of factors: The CV-22 is in a state of contraction after years of maintenance issues that culminated in the fatal crash last in 2024. As a result AFSOC made the decision to temporarily mothball 20+ birds and focus efforts on the remaining. The maintenance issues are focused on: 1. The blades (wearing out MUCH fast in Middle East sand) - I believe the time between major maintenance was down to 100 hours instead of the planned 500 hours. 2. Turbine performance decline (again related to Middle East sand) - the find sand was "coaking" on the turbine inlet blades and causing reduced power. Ultimately they changed the FDAC to allow higher operating temps in an attempt to burn the coaking off. (very simplified answer). 3. IR center Body problems (cracks) - perhaps the most vexing problem as the airframe manufacturer pointed at the engine OEM Rolls Royce and the Engine OEM pointed back at Bell. 4. Hard clutch engagements like the one that caused the crash in Japan. In short the clutch engages hard which causes a rapid rise of torque to the opposite engine and can cause REAL issues, ultimately, gearbox failure. As a result of these issues there is a distrust of the platform by some of the Tier 1 teams. Also, while the speed and range profile seem to make sense I wonder if the survivor being up high had an impact. The CV-22 is big and maybe they couldn't land on the high uneven terrain. Hovering a CV-22 that high over the survivor was probably not optimal. The downwash is 10 X a helicopter. We had issues the first few times we did fast rope and ended up having to put large weights at the end of the rope to keep them on the ground. The survivor was wounded and hiding in a crevice in very high terrain, so I am guessing that had an impact. Two things that are not being talked about much: When the MC-130's became stuck they called in "other assets" to help. There is a video from Iran showing one of the other assets. ssstwitter.com_1775434822410.mp4 And, as per American SOF standard, we trolled the Iranians in the LZ...left them a Fuck you present!

Transports carrying little-birds have been a thing for a very long time.

If true, and I was a strike eagle pilot (eww), no way I'd let that missile sponge in my back seat (sts)! 😂

He just might shoot that gun

Be interesting to see how firing the CoS of the army came about. In the middle of operations no less.

Always with photoshops of this fat 80 yr old yoked out like Stallone.

The MC-130 community trains to this extensively; the 160th is one of our primary customers. I've worked Little Birds on both prepared strips and dirt LZs; the community as a whole is proficient at both. -130s get stuck from time to time, it happens even in training, especially at strips that haven't been used much. I had a colleague almost get stuck doing Little Bird Infil at Red Devil LZ in CO during a Bi-Lat, was a close thing. The CV discussion is a valid one but people are missing the most likely reason those guys weren't playing on this one (open kimono, I'm speculating). It's probably was a logistics issue. It takes quite a while to deploy Ospreys; they usually have to go by boat if deploying from CONUS. If you fly them any serious distance the TAAR requirement is significant. If you have them do gas and gos you'll leave a trail of broken -22s to your FSB; they just break a lot. Their logistics footprint is also quite large, read a lot C-17 flights to move their support tail. They also aren't a great fast rope/hoist platform and they have pretty serious weight limitations at high DAs.

The fact that not one good guy perished... This is going to make a great mini-series one day!

Yes. Using little birds makes total sense. Fast, stealthy, reliable, expendable. Looking for one dude is way easier with four of those instead of the flying freight train that is the MV-22 and the overcaffeinated hyper-violent TRAP team that's on it.

Someone else suggested WALDO.

How often is it done on a prepared strip, vs unprepared? Just curious, as the TWZ article seems to point to it being on a random patch of ground in the middle of the desert. Either way, understood about it being something that's trained for. Regarding the KISS principle, was more referring to Ospreys being more simple than the MH-6 / C-130 combo. Granted, that's putting a lot of faith in Osprey capabilities...... Again, spitballing from my comfy armchair.

Nope. Very simple. Been doing it for a long time.

Will be fascinating to read this whole story when it comes out, warts and all. Particularly the planning, and how they chose which assets to use. This TWZ article has more details on the MC-130J landing site in Iran, along with some background on the MC-130J / MH-6 Little Bird combo. Had no idea it was a thing, but apparently something the 160th SOAR trains for. The latest update puts the landing zone at "...............just south of Isfahan. This puts it about 200 miles from the Iranian coastline and roughly 230 miles from a land border." By my Google Maps analysis, maybe 400-ish miles from Kuwait City. This does seem like exactly the kind of scenario where the Osprey was supposed to shine. Shades of Eagle Claw, with us leaving helos and C-130s in the desert. Not to mention, the whole concept of landing C-130s in the desert in order to launch Little Birds out the back seems to run afoul of the KISS principle. Comfy here in my armchair, though.

Awesome everyone extracted safely. I sure hope a lot of lessons learned come out of this as I finished my taxes yesterday. Assuming it was one SA-6 that's a lot of bang for the bad guy's Rial 2 × MC-130J Commando II aircraft 4 × MH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters 1 × F-15E Strike Eagle 1 × A-10 Warthog 2 × Reapers

Steve is a fantastic author too. Worth a look.

My record on 2026 predictions has been spotty at best, ok it’s been crappy but mostly in a good way… that out of the way, if we arm the Kurds in Iran we have to keep Turkey from intervening, if encourage the Baluchi and Azeris we can’t leave them hanging, if we get a ceasefire and opening of the Strait then we have to remain in theater to ensure no retrenchment on a ceasefire deal. My guess is that we are headed for a new version of Northern / Southern Watch where we keep immediate retaliation available in theater, daily patrol and observation.

Does this mean he gets TWO watches for his troubles? Or are those different seats?

WSO's new call sign should be Matt Damon, because in 2x movies where he's stranded in space, billions in resources are spent to rescue him. And he can claim some Borne for evading.

We're getting close to the "put up or shut up" phase of the operation. We've set back the Iranian war machine decades. We've killed the leaders who targeted our people. We can still take the oil island, I'm fine with that, but it's not realistic to actually extract resources from Iran, it would just be another form of crippling economic pressure. Pretty soon we need to leave and let the people of Iran earn their reputation. If they do, then they can welcome us in as partners to help rebuild. They have enough oil and gas to make it worth our efforts. If not, then we pull back and give Israel whatever they need to keep mowing the lawn while the regime withers away.

What does he (Trump) think is going to happen? Iranian leadership has nothing to lose at this point. They only want to be in charge at the end of this. Blowing up some power plants and bridges ain't going to do shit. It'll maybe rile up the feckless Iranian people a bit more but I'm sure we're covertly trying to support them and they haven't been able to pull it off yet.

The Step-130 wasn’t available to be brought in? Pretty amazing all around.

Hands down the most wild thing ever said by a president.