The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem rotor helicopter developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and manufactured by Boeing Vertol. The Chinook is a heavy-lift helicopter that is among the heaviest lifting Western helicopters.
Its name, Chinook, is from the Native American Chinook people of Oregon and Washington state.
This article will give brief details about Chinook Helicopter within the context of the IAS exam
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Overview of Chinook Helicopter
The Chinook was originally designed by Vertol, which had begun work in 1957 on a new tandem-rotor helicopter, designated as the Vertol Model 107 or V-107.
Around the same time, the United States Department of the Army announced its intention to replace the piston engine–powered Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave with a new, gas turbine–powered helicopter. During June 1958, the U.S. The Army ordered a small number of V-107s from Vertol under the YHC-1A designation; following testing, it came to be considered by some Army officials to be too heavy for the assault missions and too light for transport purposes.
The Chinook possesses several means of loading various cargoes, including multiple doors across the fuselage, a wide loading ramp located at the rear of the fuselage and a total of three external ventral cargo hooks to carry underslung loads.
Capable of a top speed of 170 knots (200 mph; 310 km/h), upon its introduction to service in 1962, the helicopter was considerably faster than contemporary 1960s utility helicopters and attack helicopters, and is still one of the fastest helicopters in the US inventory.
The military version of the helicopter has been exported to nations across the world; the U.S. Army and the Royal Air Force (see Boeing Chinook (UK variants)) have been its two largest users. The civilian version of the Chinook is the Boeing Vertol 234. It has been used by civil operators not only for passenger and cargo transport, but also for aerial firefighting and to support logging, construction, and oil extraction industries.
Characteristics of Chinook Helicopter
The brief details of the Chinook Helicopter is as folows
| General characteristics | Performance |
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Crew: 3 (pilot, copilot, flight engineer or loadmaster)
Capacity: 33–55 troops or 24 stretchers and 3 attendants or 24,000 lb (10,886 kg) payload
Length: 98 ft Fuselage length: 52 ft Width: 12 ft 5 in (fuselage) Height: 18 ft 11 in Empty weight: 11,148 kg Max takeoff weight: 50,000 lb (22,680 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Lycoming T55-GA-714A turboshaft engines, 4,733 shp (3,529 kW) each
Main rotor diameter: 2 × 60 ft (18 m)
Main rotor area: 5,600 sq ft (520 m2)
Blade section: root: Boeing VR-7; tip: Boeing VR-8 |
Maximum speed: 170 kn (196 mph, 315 km/h)
Cruise speed: 160 kn (184 mph, 296 km/h) Range: 400 nmi (460 mi, 740 km) Combat range: 200 nmi (230 mi, 370 km) Ferry range: 1,216 nmi (1,399 mi, 2,252 km) Service ceiling: 20,000 ft (6,100 m) Rate of climb: 1,522 ft/min (7.73 m/s) Disk loading: 9.5 lb/sq ft (46 kg/m2) Power/mass: 0.28 hp/lb (0.46 kW/kg) |
| Armament: Up to 3 pintle-mounted medium machine guns (1 on loading ramp and 2 at shoulder windows), generally 7.62 mm (0.300 in) M240/FN MAG machine guns, and can be armed with the 7.62 mm M134 Minigun rotary machine gun. | Systems: Rockwell Collins Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) (MH-47G/CH-47F) |
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