RAF Chinook
Royal Air Force Chinook
Description
Role	Medium transport helicopter
Crew	3 (pilot, copilot, crew chief/combat commander)
First Flight	September 21, 1961
Entered Service (RAF)	December 1980
Manufacturer	Boeing Integrated Defense Systems
Dimensions
Length	98 ft 9 in	30.1 m
Rotor Diameter	60 ft 0 in	18.3 m
Height	18 ft 8 in	5.7 m
Weights
Empty	22,450 lb	10,185 kg
Loaded	26,680 lb	12,100 kg
Maximum Takeoff	50,000 lb	22,680 kg
Capacity	44 troops or 24 litters and 2 attendants
Powerplant
Engines	2 Avco Lycoming T55-L-712 turboshafts
Power	2 x 3,750 hp	2 x 2,800 kW
Performance
Maximum Speed	183 mph	295 km/h
Combat Range	miles	km
Ferry Range	1,280 miles	2,060 km
Service Ceiling	8,500 ft	2,590 m
Rate of Climb	1,980 ft/min	10.1 m/s
Power/Mass	hp/lb	kW/kg
Avionics
Avionics
Armament
Guns	2 x M-134 miniguns and 1 x M-60 machine gun
Bombs
Missiles
Rockets
Other

The Royal Air Force is the second largest operator of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook of the 16 nations which use the type. Download high resolution version (1500x1063, 460 KB) Chinook HC2 (ZA677) of the RAF at an air display at Kemble airfield, Gloucestershire, England. ... The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... Jump to: navigation, search September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1961 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Categories: Stub | Defence companies | Boeing | U.S. aircraft manufacturers ... The Royal Air Force (often abbreviated to RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Boeing Company NYSE: BA is the leading American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with its largest production facilities in Everett, Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle, Washington. ... Jump to: navigation, search The CH-47 Chinook is a highly versatile, twin engine, twin rotor heavy-lift helicopter. ...

RAF Chinook's have been widely deployed; serving in the Falklands War, Operation Desert Storm, large peace-keeping commitments in the Balkans, the evacuation of Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq War. The RAF's Chinooks force also provides more routine support of the British Military, particularly in Northern Ireland. One Chinook is maintained as part of the Falklands Garrison. Jump to: navigation, search The Falklands War or the Malvinas War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), was an armed conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands (also known in Spanish as the Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, between March and June... See also: 2003 invasion of Iraq and Gulf War (disambiguation) C Company, 1st Battalion, The Staffordshire Regiment, 1st UK Armoured Division The Persian Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of 34 nations led by the United States. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe southeastern Europe (see the Definitions and boundaries section below). ... Jump to: navigation, search Royal motto: Quis separabit (Latin: Who will separate?) Northern Irelands location within the UK Official languages English, Irish, Ulster Scots Capital and largest city Belfast First Minister Office suspended Area  - Total Ranked 4th 13,843 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 4th 1,685,267... The Falkland Islands are an overseas territory of the United Kingdom and as such rely on the UK for guarantee of their security. ...

Chinook HC.1

The Chinook CH-47A entered service with the US Army in 1962. Following the unsuccessful Bristol Belvedere project, a similar design to the Boeing helicopter, the RAF ordered 33 HC.1s in 1978. These aircraft were comparable to the CH-47C, fitted with Lycoming T55-L-11E engines. Eight more HC.1s were delivered from 1984 to 1986 with the CH-47D's Lycoming T55-L-712 turboshafts. Jump to: navigation, search US Army Seal HHC, US Army Distinctive Unit Insignia The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... This is a list of aviation-related events from 1962: Events January US Army CH-21 Shawnees are dispatched to Vietnam, the first US military aircraft to be deployed there January 10-11 - a B-52 Stratofortress is flown from Okinawa to Madrid, establishing a new distance record of 12... The Bristol Aeroplane Company (formerly British and Colonial Aeroplane Company) began building primitive Bristol Boxkites in a former tram shed and became famous for the production of the war-time Blenhein and Beaufighter, the Brabazon airliner prototypes, the Britannia and Freighter and the Belvedere and Sycamore helicopters. ...

The replacement of the HC.1's metal rotor blades with glass fibre rotors saw these aircraft designated Chinook HC.1Bs. The main cargo of the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor, which was sunk during the Falklands War, was three Chinook HC.1s and five Wessex helicopters. One Argentine CH-47C was captured during the war and returned to RAF service as a HC2. In most seafaring countries, the merchant marine (or merchant navy) is a fleet of ships used for commerce that sometimes complements the navy. ... The Atlantic Conveyor laden with Sea Harriers off the coast of Ascension Island. ...

Chinook HC.2

The US Army's next generation Chinook, the CH-47D, entered service in 1982. Improvements from the CH-47C included upgraded engines, fiberglass rotor blades, a redesigned cockpit to reduce pilot workload, redundant and improved electrical systems, an advanced flight control system (FCS) and improved avionics. The RAF returned their original HC.1s to Boeing for remanufacture to CH-47D standard, the first of which returned to the UK in 1993. Three additional HC.2s were ordered with delivery beginning in 1995.

A RAF HC.2 crashed into the Mull of Kintyre on June 2, 1994 while carrying 25 senior members of the British security forces (RUC, Army and MI5) from RAF Aldergrove, near Belfast to Inverness, Scotland. In 1995 an RAF board of inquiry found that there was no conclusive evidence to determine the cause of the crash. However two air marshals, on reviewing the evidence, found the two pilots guilt of gross negligence. A mull is an almost exclusively Scottish term for the geographic feature known as a promontory and, often more specifically, for the tip of that promontory or peninsula. ... Jump to: navigation, search 2 June is the 153rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (154th in leap years), with 212 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... The acronym RUC may refer to any of the following: Rádio Universidade de Coimbra Rapid Update Cycle Recordings Under Construction Roskilde University (Roskilde Universitetscenter) Royal Ulster Constabulary Renmin Univisity of China,P.R.C This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share... Jump to: navigation, search Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5, officially called the Security Service, is one of the British secret service agencies. ... Aldergrove Crest USAF C-17 operating from Aldergrove in support of U.S. Presidential visit, 2003. ... Jump to: navigation, search Belfast (Béal Feirste in Irish) is the second-largest city in Ireland. ... Inverness (Inbhir Nis in Scottish Gaelic) is the only city in the Scottish Highlands. ... Timeline of Scottish history Caledonia List of not fully sovereign nations Subdivisions of Scotland National parks (Scotland) Traditional music of Scotland Flower of Scotland Wars of Scottish Independence National Trust for Scotland Historic houses in Scotland Castles in Scotland Museums in Scotland Abbeys and priories in Scotland Gardens in Scotland...

This ruling has proved highly controversial, a subsequent fatal accident inquiry, House of Commons Defence Committee report and Commons Public Accounts Committee have all either left open the question of blame or challenged the original conclusion. Computer Weekly and Britain's Channel 4 News have suggested that the FADEC software was responsible for the crash. FADEC was the cause of an incident in 1989 and its caused a delay in the entry into service of the HC2. The Ministry of Defence successfully argued with Textron Lycoming, the FADEC and engine producer, that it was the engine and not RAF procedure which caused the 1989 crash. In some bicameral parliaments of a Westminster System, the House of Commons has historically been the name of the elected lower house. ... Jump to: navigation, search Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... Jump to: navigation, search FADEC is the acronym for Full Authority Digital Engine Control. ...

6 further Chinooks were ordered in 1995 as Chinook HC.2As. The main difference in these and the standard HC.2 was the strengthening of the front fuselage to allow the fitting of a aerial refueling probe in future. Aerial refueling, also called in-flight refueling (IFR) or air-to-air refueling (AAR), is the practice of transferring fuel from one aircraft to another during flight. ...

Chinook HC.3

Ordered at the same time as the HC.2As, 8 Chinook HC.3s were to enter service as dedicated Special Forces helicopters. These were to effectively be low-cost variants of the US Army's SF Chinook, the MH-47G. The upgrade would include improved range, night vision sensors and navigation capability. The eight aircraft were to cost £259 million and the forecast In-Service Date (ISD) was November 1998 (defined as delivery of the first six aircraft). As work proceeded, it became evident that displays for the weather radar and other systems anticipated for an avionics upgrade programme (put to contract in 1997) would not fit inside the existing cockpit. Jump to: navigation, search Special Forces are relatively small military units raised and trained for special operations missions such as Special Reconnaissance (SR), Unconventional Warfare (UW), Direct Action (DA), Counter-Terrorism (CT), and Foreign Internal Defense (FID). ...

One potential solution was to adopt a fully digital cockpit, as used by Chinooks purchased by the Royal Netherlands Air Force. However, this was not affordable within the funding available for the HC3 programme, and a hybrid solution was adopted, incorporating elements of the existing analogue cockpit and the new digital systems and displays. In March 1998 the new ISD was set at January 2002. Jump to: navigation, search Logo of the Royal Netherlands Airforce First F-16 deliverd to the Dutch Royal Airforce The Royal Netherlands Air Force (Koninklijke Luchtmacht) is the aviation branch of the Netherlands defence forces. ...

The problem seems to have been a lack of definition of requirements by the Ministry of Defence. Of 100 separate requirements only 30 were defined in the contract. All the aircraft were accepted from Boeing by December 2001, meeting, and in some cases exceeding, the contract. But none have so far been accepted into service. A key issue is that the Chinook HC3's unique, hybrid digital/analogue cockpit is reliant on software to operate. However, the contract did not specify that software documentation and codes should be analysed in accordance with UK standards in order to demonstrate the integrity of the software. It has not, therefore, been possible to demonstrate that the flight instruments meet these standards. The idea that the systems would be proved by the RNAF aircraft proved unfounded due to the unique configuration of the HC3. Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ...

One of the main contractors for the avionics system has recently indicated that it would allow access to some software data. However, the process of analysis is time consuming and expensive and, in addition, there is no guarantee of a successful outcome because the legacy software is not amenable to the techniques required to confirm the robustness of software design. Consequently, the Chinook HC3 is currently restricted to day/night flying above 500 feet in clear weather, and where the pilot can fly the aircraft solely using external reference points without relying on the flight displays. These restrictions mean that the helicopters cannot be used other than for limited flight trials. The onboard electronics used for piloting an aircraft are called avionics(AVI-ation electr-ONICS). ...

Another problem is the corrosion allegedly suffered during the helicopters storage at Boeing. It was reported in 2003 that the US Army were interested in buying the 8 HC.3s, allowing the RAF to purchase MH-47Gs. However following inspection of the aircraft the US Army declined this option. One HC.3 was damaged during delivery, rolling backwards into a crane at Bristol docks on July 20, 2001. Damage was significant but repairable. If and when the HC.3s enter service they will join 7 Squadron at RAF Odiham. Jump to: navigation, search Bristol is an English city and county and one of the three administrative centres of South West England (the others being Plymouth and Exeter). ... Jump to: navigation, search July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 164 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Reputation in the RAF

Whilst the RAF has many types of helicopters in active service, the Chinook has proven itself one of the most effective. One particular Chinook, registered ZA718 with the Royal Air Force and known by its original callsign 'Bravo November', has seen action in every major operation the RAF has been deployed to in the helicopter's 25-year service life. Bravo November started out spearheading the British landings on the Falkland Islands in 1982 and was being transported aboard the container ship Atlantic Conveyor along with three other Chinooks. However, the Argentine Air Force chose the Atlantic Conveyor as a target for their deadly Exocet sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. By a stroke of pure luck, however, Bravo November was airborne on an engineering test flight at the time. Having survived the destruction of the ship it was being carried on, Bravo November managed to make it to safety on the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. Unfortunately, ZA718 ran into trouble during a night mission transporting guns to the SAS when pilot Dick Langworthy, unable to see clearly through a thick snow shower, allowed Bravo November to descend and hit the sea at around 100 knots (139 km/h), throwing up spray and flooding the engine intakes. However, Dick and his copilot managed to get the helicopter back in the air. With the radio damaged and unable to navigate, Bravo November returned to San Carlos and after a quick inspection revealed the impact had caused little more than dents to the fuselage and radio sytems. Jump to: navigation, search 1982 (MCMLXXXII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina) is the air force of Argentina. ... The Atlantic Conveyor laden with Sea Harriers off the coast of Ascension Island. ... Jump to: navigation, search An aircraft carrier is a warship whose main role is to deploy and recover aircraft—in effect acting as a sea-going airbase. ... Jump to: navigation, search For other Special Air Services, see Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Special Air Service of New Zealand. ... San Carlos is a settlement in northwestern East Falkland, lying south of Port San Carlos on San Carlos Water. ...

ZA718 Bravo November went on to serve in Lebanon, Germany, Northern Ireland, Kurdistan and Iraq, being the first British helicopter to land Royal Marines ashore in Iraq. Jump to: navigation, search Royal motto: Quis separabit (Latin: Who will separate?) Northern Irelands location within the UK Official languages English, Irish, Ulster Scots Capital and largest city Belfast First Minister Office suspended Area  - Total Ranked 4th 13,843 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 4th 1,685,267... Jump to: navigation, search The Kurdish flag flown by Kurds in parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Syria. ... The Corps of Royal Marines, usually just known as the Royal Marines (RM), are the United Kingdoms amphibious forces and a core component of the countrys Rapid Deployment Force. ...

Two pilots have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross at the controls of ZA718. This article is about the awards given by various British Commonwealth countres. ...

Chinook squadrons

• 7 Squadron - RAF Odiham - 5 Chinook HC2
• 18 Squadron - RAF Odiham - 18 Chinook HC2
• 27 Squadron - RAF Odiham - 10 Chinook HC2
• 78 Squadron - RAF Mount Pleasant - 1 Chinook HC2

No. ... No. ... No. ... RAF Odiham crest RAF Odiham is a Royal Air Force station situated a little to the south of the historic small town of Odiham in Hampshire, England. ... No. ... RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands is the most recent purpose-built airfield in the Royal Air Force. ...

Sources

• HC.3 information edited version of NAO: Battlefield Helicopters
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