Hanscom Air Base, Massachusetts- There have been over 20,000 Combat Survivor Locator Radios delivered now to the U.S. and coalition military forces, and an additional 20,000 are ordered.
These devises help save lives, and are a critical link to U.S. and Coalition Servicemembers that are shot down or for other reasons stranded behind enemy lines. Officers and Officials of the Electronic Systems Center are proud to be able to manufacture these devices and deliver them to different Warfighters in each of the conflict currently being pursues.
In 2008 the Joint Program received a large sum of funding to set up and deliver these radios to U.S. Central Command. These radios are currently use on the front lines in both Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The program was accelerated in the past after Captain Scott Grady was shot down in his F-16 jet over Serbia in June 1995. Because Captain Grady did not have a means of communications, it was six harrowing days before he could be rescued out of hostile territory.
?This program was designed because we did not have the capability to positively identify and locate a survivor,? said Major Charles Leonard of the CSEL Joint Program.