The US Army has received approval to dispose of hundreds of used Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters on the export market and use the proceeds to help buy 300 new-build Chinooks.
"We got approval to sell the first aircraft this morning," Col William Crosby, CH-47 programme manager, told the Association of the United States Army aviation symposium in Washington on 6 January.
The unique financing strategy - called the cargo helicopter airframe procurement support (CHAPS) programme - is intended to serve both a potential foreign market for a cheaper alternative to acquiring new-build CH-47Fs and the army's desire to buy new airframes.
The CHAPS framework became possible after the army changed its acquisition strategy for the Chinook programme early last year. The service's original plan called for the remanufacture of older Chinooks to the F-model standard. However, the army accepted a Boeing proposal to provide new build CH-47Fs at a significantly lower cost than a remanufactured aircraft.
The shift reopened the Chinook production line in Boeing's Philadelphia plant, but also created a surplus of older CH-47s now in service that would have to be retired. Instead, the army will try to use CHAPS to dispose of as many of these airframes as possible to foreign customers.
The army's CH-47F manufacturing programme is in hiatus while Boeing clears a production backlog of MH-47Gs for the US special forces. F-model production is planned to resume in 2006 with deliveries of new-build aircraft.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
