Boeing has been given the go ahead to sell 10 CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters to Greece, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced on 11 December.
Greece requested and the US State Department approved the sale of up to 10 D-model Chinooks and supporting equipment for a total cost of $150 million.
Rather than a foreign military sale by Boeing to Greece, the deal has no principal contractor. The aircraft will come from US Army stock, DSCA says.
Greece already operates a fleet of 15 CH-47Ds, meaning it “will have no difficulty absorbing these helicopters into its armed forces”, the announcement says. The deal will require assignment of US government or Boeing personnel to Greece at some point.
The D-model Chinook has been supplanted in the US Army by the CH-47F, which sports an upgraded Honeywell T55-714A engines, a Rockwell Collins common avionics architecture system (CAAS) cockpit and BAE Systems' digital advanced flight control system. Eventually the US army will replace all of its Chinooks with CH-47Fs.
The army already has upgraded many D-model Chinooks to CH-47F configuration, but will take delivery of hundreds of new-build F-models, which also have a milled, single-construction airframe that eliminates many of the metal seams that wear from vibration. Boeing has already built at least 300 F-model Chinooks, which are being marketed also to international customers. In this case, Greece is buying D-model Chinooks the army has replaced with the upgraded CH-47F.
The Greek government requested the sale of a host of spare parts and support equipment along with the 10 CH-47Ds. That includes 23 T55-GA-714A Engines, 20 of which will be installed and three spares.
The country also wants enough common missile warning systems, high/very-high/ultra-high frequency radios, direction finder sets, GPS navigation sets, homing radios and transponders to outfit the ten helicopters, with spares left over.
“This sale will contribute to both the United States’ and Greece’s defense and security goal of greater stability in the Balkans and the Levant regions by enhancing a critical helicopter lift capability,” DSCA says. “This sale will facilitate greater interoperability of Greek systems both bilaterally and within NATO.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com
