The three-year saga of the U.S. Air Force's attempt to acquire a new combat search and rescue helicopter apparently came to an end April 6 when Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to kill the service's CSAR-X (Combat Search and Rescue-X) program. Gates suggested he might have the Defense Department begin a new program to build a search and rescue aircraft all the services could use, but he offered no definite plan.rn"This (CSAR-X) program has a troubled acquisition history and raises the fundamental question of whether this important mission can only be accomplished by yet another single-service solution with a single-purpose aircraft," Gates told a Pentagon news conference. "We will look at whether there is a requirement for a specialized search and rescue aircraft along the lines that the Air Force had in mind and whether it should be a joint capability."
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