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| Boeing Chinook News from Ohio |
18 October 2003: GREEN - The helicopter hovered over the Ohio Army National Guard facility for several minutes, carrying its big payload. |
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From a distance, it looked like it was carrying a tiny truck. |
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It was not. |
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The $17 million Boeing CH-47D Chinook, the newest helicopter in the Ohio National Guard arsenal, was in fact carrying a 7,700 pound Army HMMWV (high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle). |
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Slowly, the big, loud, olive drab green colored Chinook - a twin-engine, heavy-lift cargo helicopter - lowered the Army vehicle to the ground at its new base at the Ohio Army National Guard facility at Akron-Canton Airport on Friday. |
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It is the first of six or seven Chinooks that are expected to be purchased and supplied to a newly created unit - Company G, 137th Aviation Battalion, based at Akron-Canton, with about 160 soldiers in the unit, said Maj. Anthony Digiacomo, commander of Company G. |
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The company has a detachment of another 100 soldiers at Rochester, New York, that has one Chinook currently but expects to get up to six or seven within two years, Digiacomo said. |
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The helicopter weighs about 30,000 pounds with a crew of three and 7,000 pounds of fuel. It has a maximum payload of 25,000 pounds. |
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The Chinook is 52 feet long with its two rotors folded. It is almost 99 feet long with both rotors in operation. It is 19 feet high, about 12 feet wide and has a maximum speed of about 189 mph. |
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It can carry 33 combat-equipped soldiers in the troop seats or 24 injured patients in litters. |
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The Chinook at Akron-Canton was built in 1989. It has about 4,200 hours of flying time and was flown by the Army in Hawaii before it was purchased by the Ohio Army National Guard at the Corpus Christi Army Depot (CCAD), located in Texas, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Chuck McIntosh. |
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Digiacomo said about half the Chinooks assigned to National Guard units in the United States now are deployed in the Afghanistan-Iraq-Asia area and said it is possible that when the full complement of Chinooks arrive at Company G in the next few years, the unit also could be deployed overseas. |
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"This aircraft brings us so much capability," said Assistant Adjutant Gen. Ronald Young. |
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The helicopter can be used for a variety of missions ranging from helping move supplies or evacuate victims during state natural disasters, to all types of national or international military tasks: air assault, movement of troops and equipment on the battlefield, refueling, rescue hoist operations, water operations and many others, Digiacomo said. |
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"This will be a great challenge to us,"' to finally deploy the Chinook in Ohio, said Ohio's Adjutant Gen. John Smith. |
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"We like challenges." |
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