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| Pegasus Operations |
| The CH-47 Chinook - The Army's answer to bad planning. | |
- Paul Devincenzo |
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| Pictured above is the mighty CH- 47D "Chinook" accomplishing one of it's most difficult missions - the deployment of Special Forces personnel into a combat theater via a water landing. |
| Flying to all corners of the Earth in support of the many people in need of help, Hookers operate the Chinook in the name of Freedom and Democracy. From within the borders of the United States helping citizens recover from floods and hurricanes, to the Persian Gulf thwarting an aggressive dictators attempt at world domination, to the mountains of Central America or Pakistan delivering food, medicine, and supplies to the hungry and homeless, to the highlands of Korea as an ever present reminder that we are prepared to fight if necessary, we have but one goal in mind - World peace, with Freedom, Justice and Liberty for all. |
| The Mission |
| The CH-47 Chinook, the workhorse of the United States Army, is manufactured by the Boeing Vertol company. The Chinook has served as the prime mover for the U.S. Army and other military forces for decades. Its principal missions include transport of troops, artillery, ammunitions, fuel, water, barrier materials, supplies and equipment on the battlefield. Other missions include medical evacuation, aircraft recovery, fire fighting, parachute drops, heavy construction, civil development, disaster relief, and search and rescue. In the U.S. Army National Guard and among international customers, Chinooks often expend the majority of their flight hours on these latter missions. |
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| Republic of Vietnam |
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| CH-47 Chinook helicopters got their test as a combat multiplier in the Republic of Vietnam beginning in 1965 when the First Cavalry Division deployed with 56 airframes. In addition to the normal missions of troop and cargo transport, the Chinook distinguished itself as a downed aircraft recovery platform. Between 1965 and 1971, the CH-47 rescued downed aircraft worth approximately $2.7 billion. |
| Desert Shield / Storm |
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| M-978 Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) tankers and CH-47D Chinook helicopters from the 18th Aviation Brigade at Logistical Base Charlie, Northern Province, Saudi Arabia, on 10 February 1991. |
| During Operation Desert Storm "the CH-47D was often the only mode of transportation to shift large numbers of personnel, equipment, and supplies rapidly over the vast area in which US forces operated. The cargo capacity and speed provided commanders and logisticians a capability unequalled by any Army in the world" (Army Aviation in Operation Desert Storm, 1991). During the ground phase, the flanking maneuver executed by the XVIII Airborne Corps was planned with the CH-47D as the keystone. Forward Operating Base Cobra was deliberately positioned to accommodate the combat radius of a fully loaded CH-47D. Cobra was initially secured by an air assault of the 101st's 2nd Infantry Brigade. This air assault, consisting of 5000 soldiers - the largest ever conducted in history, was accomplished by a total of 126 Blackhawks and 60 Chinooks, and was designed to outflank Iraqi forces and cut off their retreat from Kuwait. By the end of the first day the CH-47Ds had lifted 131,000 gallons of fuel along with pallets of combat-configured ammunition for the next day's fight. Forty separate refueling and rearming points were active in FOB Cobra in less than two hours. |
| Bosnia |
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During peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, a Chinook company (A Company - "Big Windy", 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment) consisting of 16 aircraft flew 2,222 hours, carried 3,348 passengers, and transported over 3.2 million pounds of cargo over a six month period. These numbers equate to carrying 112 infantry platoons, 545 HMMWVs, or 201 M198 Howitzers. |
| The most publicized mission was assisting the 502d Engineer Company build a float bridge across the flooded Sava River allowing the 1st Armored Division to cross into Bosnia. On 29 and 30 December 1995, Big Windy lifted bridge bays and dropped them into the Sava River so the engineers could quickly assemble the bridge. When the Sava River flood washed away the engineer's tentage and personal equipment, Big Windy quickly resupplied the engineers so they could continue their vital mission. Additionally, a key early mission in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was the recovery of Admiral Smith's aircraft. The Blackhawk had performed a precautionary landing for what was later found to be a transmission seizure. A CH-47D sling-loaded the Blackhawk back to the Intermediate Staging Base (ISB). Big Windy began redeploying to Giebelstadt, their home station after moving from Schwabisch Hall in the early 1990's, on 14 June 1996. One platoon of six CH-47Ds remained in Hungary throughout 1997. |
| Supporting American Civilian Agencies |
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Oregon, 3 June 1995: A Chinook helicopter from the Washington Army Reserve drops a new 12,000 pound, $150,000, 33 foot research boat into Crater Lake, from Discovery Point. |
| The new boat is especially designed for work on Crater Lake and his unofficially christened "Neuston" for an organism that dwells on the surface of the Lake. The old research boat was removed. Researchers had used an old pontoon-style boat for the past eight years, but the vessel would rock heavily during Lake swells. The Neuston will provide better safety for researchers while giving them a few extra advantages such as radar and a crane. The boat will also be used for search and rescue. |
| Alaska, 28 June 2002: Chinooks from Fort Wainwright recover an ancient marine reptile. Click-N-Go Here to read more. |
| High Altitude Rescue |
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| Another important peacetime mission seldom reviewed in the newspapers is the mission of High Altitude Rescue. Specially trained aircrews often conduct daring and dangerous rescue missions above the 14,000 foot level of several mountains around the United States. Pictured below, a CH-47 Chinook High Altitude Rescue Team (HART), from B Company - "Sugar Bears North", 4th Battalion, 123rd Aviation Regiment, Fort Wainwright, Alaska, conducts a Serac landing on a glacier near Mt. Mckinley (Denali), Alaska. When the crevasses of a glacier become so large that all that remains are a few towering ice pinnacles, those pinnacles are called Seracs. On 12 April 2000, CW3 Dennis S. Busch, Pilot, assisted by Flight Engineer SFC James Kennick, gently touched down their 45,000 pound aircraft on Kahiltna Ice Falls at about the 6,000 foot level. If one remembers that the height from the ground to the top of the Aft Rotor is approximately 18 feet, one can get a feel for how large the Serac's really are. Slide your cursor over the image to reveal the second photograph. |
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| Afghanistan |
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| Two U.S. soldiers walk on a tarmac at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base after getting off a Chinook helicopter, belonging to B Company - "Hercules", 159th Aviation Regiment, involved in this week's campaign to flush out Taliban and al-Qaeda holdouts in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, 65 km north of Kabul, Thursday, 7 March 2002. Click-N-Go Here to read more about Afghan Ops. |
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| A total of three Royal Air Force HC Mark II Chinooks assigned to 27 Squadron, located at RAF Odiham, deployed to Afghanistan via surface vessel transport when the "War on Terrorism" began. The HMS Ocean is pictured below and is the ship on the right. Two Chinooks can be seen on the flight deck near the center of the ship. |
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| More: UK Operations in Oman [Click-N-Go Here] |
| Commercial Chinooks |
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Interested in the commercial version of the Chinook helicopter? Download this 1984 Brochure explaining some of the capabilities of the commercial version of the BV234 Chinook helicopter. Click-N-Go Here. |
| Below is a photograph of a BV-234UT belonging to Columbia Helicopters Incorporated (CHI), headquartered at the Aurora State Airport, Aurora, Oregon. The picture was taken in Ecuador, hence the Ecuadorian registration. ICARO-AIR, based in Quito, Ecuador, was a supplier of aviation services and the company the helicopter was supporting. When this picture was taken, the helicopter was performing oil field work for an Italian owned company. This helicopter had AVCO Lycoming AL 5512 engines. The empty weight was 21,950 lbs, slightly less than the military version of the CH-47, and had a 28,000 pound external load capability. The 1,050 gallon external main fuel tanks were removed and two 500 gallon extended range fuel tanks were internally installed to save on weight and cut down on parasite drag. This helicopter was formerly registered as N241CH, belonging to Donald Trump at one time. As of August 2002, Columbia Helicopters possessed 8 of the 13 BV-234 Chinooks produced by Boeing, and 16 BV-107's (civilian CH-46). The helicopters were used primarily for logging, fighting forest fires, construction, and oil field support. |
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| Donald Trump's old bird even spent some time in the movies. Shown below is Ingen's model 234 Chinook making a cameo appearance in a dinosaur chasing scene from the 1997 movie "Jurassic Park - The Lost World". |
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| For more on Columbia Helicopters Incorporated, Click-N-Go Here. |
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| 1990: Parked on the ramp at Linden, New Jersey, is Donald Trump's BV234 Chinook N225RA when his company operated a shuttle service in New York City. Behind it is the second of two that Trump Air owned. They were used to shuttle his clients from Manhattan to casinos in Atlantic City. When the recession hit early in 1991, he sold both to Columbia Helicopters Incorporated (CHI). Click-N-Go Here for a larger version. |
| Middle Eastern Theater (What, Again?) |
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| The above photograph has been nominated as the "2003 Photo of the Year", by the staff of Chinook-Helicopter.com. Please, feel free to submit your images and compete in the contest. Just send us an email. See more contest photographs, just Click-N-Go Here. |
| In 2003, Australian CH-47D Chinooks did their part to help root out the bad guys and bring peace and order to the indigenous inhabitants of the Middle Eastern Theater. Above, A15-106 is shown practicing pinnacle landings. Click-N-Go Here to read more. |
| Disaster Relief Operations |
| Hurricane Mitch | Hurricane Katrina | Earthquake Pakistan |
| Related Sites |
| Tail Number History |
| Get Some Door Gunner Training. |
| Experience Night Vision. |
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