FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla.–The latest version of the Army’s heavy-lift helicopter, the CH-47F Chinook,produced by Boeing [BA], is now deployed to meet current operations, according to officials.
“Currently, the 47F is in Iraq for about six months now, and an F unit has been in Afghanistan for a couple of months,” Lt. Col. Thomas Todd, Army product manager, CH-47F, said at the Association of the United States Army Institute for Land Warfare Winter Seminar here.
The Army is completing fielding Chinook F-models to the fourth Army unit.
The service wants a total of 452 F-models, Jack Dougherty, vice president Boeing H-47 programs, said at the conference.
Col. Newman Shufflebarger, acting deputy Program Executive Officer, Aviation, said the Chinook fleet is about 60 aircraft short. The multiyear contract will gain some ground back, and “starting about ’13, we’ll be back.”
Todd said, “We’ve bought 57 to date, and at the end of the month will have about 59 in inventory.”
During the conference, Boeing announced the delivery of the first CH-47F produced under a five-year Army contract awarded in August. This helicopter will be assigned to the 82nd Airborne Div., Ft. Bragg, the fourth unit to be equipped with the new F-model.
Under the multiyear contract, Boeing will deliver 24 aircraft this year and then begin a graduated delivery rate through 2015. The multiyear contract also contains priced options for an additional 24 aircraft for as many as 215 Chinooks.
The CH-47F features a new monolithic airframe that reduces operation and maintenance costs.
Shufflebarger said the situational awareness is greater and all information is readily available with the Rockwell Collins [COL] Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) digital cockpit. It provides five screens, all of which can provide the same information and digital moving maps. The BAE Systems‘ Digital Advanced Flight Control System (DAFCS) provides dramatically improved flight-control capabilities, performance, and safety in the harshest of environments.
“It’s a true life saver,” Shufflebarger said. It improves flight handling characteristics at 40 knots and below in degraded visual environments.
The CH-47F has improved survivability features, including the Common Missile Warning and Improved Countermeasure Dispenser systems.
With two 4,733-horsepower Honeywell [HON] engines, the new F-models can reach speeds greater than 175 mph and transport more than 21,000 pounds. With the Robertson Aviation Extended Range Fuel System, the F has a mission radius of more than 400 nautical miles.
Todd said with the cockpit hover display, an F pilot can land in full brown-out conditions in the desert with confidence. The autopilot ability aids pilots when they become disoriented, leveling the aircraft automatically and going into a slow climb at the current heading, giving the pilot time to recover.
“It’s proven itself, in feedback we’ve received in the hot desert environment. It’s [F model] already saved lives,” he said.
There are other systems to help the aircraft to survive, Todd said, for example, “we have the ability to use backup systems” if there’s ever a “diversion of accuracy” from the current GPS system.
“You can’t get lost and can’t be late,” Mark Ballew, Boeing manager, Chinook Business Development, said of the F-model and its new systems. Ballew is a former Army Chinook pilot.
The Chinook program office continues to work on reducing pilot workload, Todd said. Before the F, a Subjective Workload Analysis was conducted on Chinook that captured actual cockpit inputs that are confirmed by visual recording for the exact number of movements a pilot has to make on the system.
“The bottom line: we were able to cut the workload in half of pilots in the cockpit by going to a digital cockpit,” Todd said. “The real winner is improved situational awareness.”
For example, now a pilot has more than a paper map. He can quickly put an overlay on the digital map showing locations, frequencies, or other data. However, pilots still carry their flight publications bags as a backup.
Shufflebarger said other equipment being examined for use on the new F include crashworthy seats aft, machine guns and a new roller system so loads can be rolled aboard, not brought on and tied down. An infrared suppression system is also in progress, ready to go for validation tests.
The 47F is gaining a lot of attention outside the United States, Dougherty said. “We’re in negotiations with Canada and expect to close by July” for 16 F-models. These helicopters will have some configuration differences from the U.S. version.
In December, six D-model Chinooks were sold from stock to Canada, Shufflebarger said. These were aircraft already in theater and account for part of the fleet shortfall of 60 helos. Work on the deal began in March 2008, finding the airplanes, working out the government agreements, sending Canadian pilots to school to learn to fly the 47D and then pulling off U.S. equipment from the helicopters.
Dougherty said the 47Ds will help Canada extend its participation in Afghanistan through ’11.
Dougherty said right outside his window at the Boeing Ridley Park, Pa., plant is the first of the Dutch Chinooks the company is building. They have six F-models on the way.
Chinooks will also be built for a country that can’t be identified, he said, and there have been inquiries from countries the company can’t sell to.
Additionally, negotiations for 16 Fs for Italy have been completed. They will receive four aircraft per year for four years and options for more years. Final assembly and completion of the rotorcraft will be done in Italy by Finmeccanica‘s AgustaWestland.
Shufflebarger said customers who already have D models are starting to think about when they might go to an F-model. South Korea, for example, got their Chinooks around the late 1980s.
Japan has about 70 Chinooks, the second biggest Chinook fleet in the world, he said. They buy two or three a year, and in a contract this year will make its first move from the D-model to the F-model.
Ballew said there are about 820 Chinooks worldwide in some 18 countries, all of which have some interest in the F-model