CFSS denotes the Centre de formation à la survie et au sauvetage, the French survival and rescue training centre at Air Base 120 in Cazaux. This Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace organisation prepares aircrew from the Air and Space Force, Navy and Army for isolation after an aviation emergency: surviving, avoiding capture, resisting exploitation in captivity and contributing to their recovery. It also works with Commando parachutiste de l’air n° 30 to train ground forces for recovering isolated personnel.
Role within the French SERE system
The starting point is a crew forced to leave its aircraft and suddenly cope on the ground or in the water. A crash or bailout can cause injuries and scatter equipment; in hostile territory, the enemy may simultaneously search the probable landing area. CFSS therefore connects preparation for environmental exposure with behaviour under hostile threat and cooperation during a possible rescue. The French SERE context covers Survie, Évitement de capture or Évasion, Résistance and Extraction: survival, avoidance of capture, resistance to hostile exploitation and recovery.
Alpha, Bravo and Charlie describe training depth according to the risk of isolation and exploitation. Alpha provides theoretical fundamentals for a low risk. Bravo adds practical application for a medium risk. Charlie prepares personnel at high risk for survival, evasion, captivity and recovery, including through connected practical situations. French Air and Space Force aircrew receive this highest level because their missions can take them over hostile territory. CFSS names the training organisation; Charlie describes the training level of the person at risk.
The national framework describes the required capabilities, while the services regulate delivery and the maintenance of their qualifications. CFSS prepares aircrew from several services for similar problems during isolation. Environmental courses, SERE training and recovery-team training address different tasks. A cold-weather course prepares personnel for their surroundings after an accident; a Charlie scenario combines such survival tasks with capture risk and recovery procedures.
What aircrew must be able to do themselves
After reaching the ground, the person must assess their surroundings, physical condition and equipment still within reach. An injury changes how far they can move and what they can carry. A survival pack separated from the person only becomes useful if it can actually be retrieved; searching for it must be weighed against lost time and detection risk. Training with personal equipment therefore starts with the resources aircrew may retain after a bailout or crash. The pack is assembled for the areas overflown.
Protection, location, water and food must be connected under these conditions. Someone who reaches a shelter site must also judge whether they can remain concealed there, obtain water and support a prepared recovery. Moving a long distance may leave the immediate search area, but costs energy and changes the location where friendly forces would search for the person. A conspicuous signal may attract a rescuer while also leading the enemy to them.
Three different practical functions must be mastered: finding one’s location and moving, marking that location for others, and transmitting information. A positioning device initially gives the person a location. A light, infrared or smoke signal must be detectable by the appropriate search force. An operational communications device, by contrast, allows position, condition and necessary arrangements to be transmitted. The options remaining after the emergency depend on retained devices, their working condition and the connection actually available.
Environmental courses and parachute water landing
The CFSS role includes separate training for cold, desert and equatorial environments. These courses prepare aircrew to act with their emergency equipment in the area where an accident may leave them. Cold and wind demand protection from heat loss; in arid areas, water needs and heat shape the allocation of available resources. In equatorial conditions, aircrew must cope with a humid, densely vegetated forest. These demands change the choice of shelter site, use of the pack and energy available for obtaining supplies or moving.
Environmental preparation combines instruction about the particular area with acclimatisation, practice of individual tasks and supervised application of suitable skills in the field. Participants work with the equipment actually intended for them. Controlled training gives them an opportunity to become familiar with equipment and actions under those environmental conditions before they need them after an accident without that training support.
Another specific task is Amerrissage sous voile, landing in water under a parachute. Fighter and transport aircrew may have to abandon their aircraft over the sea. CFSS teaches this skill during initial training and provides refresher training. In the controlled training arrangement, the participant is attached to a training boat by a harness and safety cable, raised to a training height using its winch and applies the prescribed procedures through to water landing. The subject is the transition from parachute to water. Escape from a submerged cabin, life rafts and helicopter pickup are separate training tasks involving different equipment and actions.
Evasion and conduct after capture
In hostile territory, capture risk starts with the search for the crew of the crashed or abandoned aircraft. The person must therefore perform survival tasks in ways that minimise the chance of directing that search towards them. Under the French Charlie framework, the interaction between survival, avoiding capture and facilitating recovery is practised in a field scenario with operational equipment and opposing forces. The enemy situation influences when someone moves, where they seek protection and when they make themselves recognisable to friendly forces.
If the person is captured, their options change. The centre prepares personnel for survival in captivity both physically and psychologically. This includes Conduite après capture, conduct after capture. The French training framework addresses information protection, the stages of captivity, legal and psychological aspects and, at Charlie level, practical resistance to state and non-state captors. A question about a unit, mission or other forces may seek military information; preparation should help the person recognise this hostile exploitation and protect their information.
Psychological survival preparation accompanies CFSS training. The change from the organised working environment of a cockpit to unfamiliar ground, possibly with injury and hostile threat, suddenly requires different decisions. Panic may lead to hasty movement; apathy may prevent the person from establishing protection or using their resources. Practical exposure to such a situation is intended to prepare personnel for that transition. Rehearsed immediate actions provide a starting point: assess their condition, organise available resources and complete the next action involving protection, movement or contact. In captivity too, they must preserve their physical and mental ability to act as far as possible under the strain.
Preparing aircrew and ground forces for the same recovery
The centre trains both aircrew who may become isolated and the ground forces who may recover them. On the Ground Extraction Forces course, CFSS trainers work with CPA 30 instructors. Ground forces practise rescue, exfiltration and first aid, tasks on foot and cooperation with helicopters and boats. During a connected exercise, they must prepare their mission, respond to changes and find and extract isolated pilots. Meanwhile, the pilots apply their own survival preparation acquired on other CFSS courses.
Where a working radio connection exists, isolated pilots pass geographical and medical situation information to the ground forces. A reliable location helps the team focus its search on the correct area. Injury and mobility information affects how the team can reach and transport the person. Aircrew must obtain this information themselves and transmit it clearly; the ground team must use it to organise its search and pickup.
Contact preparation also includes identification and authentication. Recovery forces must be able to check whether they are really communicating with the missing person and whether the contact is being used as a trap. CFSS therefore connects equipment instruction with prepared recovery procedures and knowledge of personal authentication information. A position report answers the location question; authentication checks the identity of the other party. The isolated person uses the agreed signal and follows coordinated pickup actions only within the appropriate contact arrangements.
French Recherche et sauvetage de combat, abbreviated RESCo, requires cooperation between prepared personnel, suitable aircraft and ground forces. The CFSS contribution is their training and preparation for that cooperation. Whether the corresponding force package is actually available and able to act during an operation depends on operational planning, available resources and the threat. Until usable contact is established, the isolated person must continue protection, sustainment and evasion with the resources remaining. Even after contact, terrain, injuries or enemy activity may require a different pickup from the one initially intended.
Instructor development at the centre
Survival instructors form the specialist core, many with a professional background in the air commandos. During their internal development, they first complete the courses as participants and then in an instructor role. Further specialisation also takes them to partners abroad, for example for extreme cold-weather training.
CFSS also sends specialists to joint recovery exercises in which aircrew, helicopters and ground forces work together. The experts observe and discuss, among other things, the behaviour of isolated personnel and application of agreed procedures. The centre also collects accounts from aircrew who have bailed out and uses relevant excerpts in training, for example on the shock of bailout and perception of time on the ground.