Feb 6, 2019, 10:44am
Army Plan To Delay Chinook Helicopter Upgrades May Have Big Jobs, Political Consequences
Loren Thompson
The Pentagon hasn’t yet revealed its budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1, but some details have begun to leak out. One big surprise is that the Army wants to delay “Block II†upgrades to its largest, fastest helicopter by five years. If that plan is implemented, it will threaten 2,000 jobs in Pennsylvania where the helicopter is assembled, and hundreds more at supplier sites across the country.
The helicopter in question is the CH-47F Chinook, a workhorse vital to moving troops, vehicles and supplies around the battlefield. The Block II upgrades will provide a number of improvements, but the most important is aimed at reclaiming range and payload capability lost when armor and equipment were added to the Chinook. Without the Block II upgrades, the Army’s rotorcraft fleet will be unable to lift the service’s next-generation jeep (the “joint light tactical vehicleâ€) or its standard piece of field artillery.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2019/02/06/army-plan-to-delay-chinook-helicopter-upgrades-will-have-big-jobs-political-consequences/#6c907a401b7e