The CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter

    The CH-47D Chinook helicopter can master many missions. In the picture above you can see it carrying an artillery cannon. (artillery cannons are awesome and can shoot miles away and land within feet of their target.)  It is a great way to transport troops to far away places. In can carry a large number of equipment to the battlefield where it is needed. Medical evacuations are often needed in war and the Chinook is wonderful at that. In soldiers need to be parachute dropped they can use the Chinook. It can be used to find people in search and rescue. It is used to help fight fires and heavy construction jobs. Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm are some missions The Ch-47D Chinook took place in.

    There are over 1,179 Chinook helicopters operational worldwide. Including in Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, Spain, the UK and three Far East countries. Boeing has delivered more than 480 Chinook helicopters to the United States Army and the Army National Guard. The CH-47F design has alterations to the airframe structure to reduce the effects of vibrations and other improvements to the helicopter. The Army is always upgrading everything to the newest and best stuff. The cockpit accommodates two pilots and an observer. The crew has ANVIS-7 night-vision goggles. For communications the helicopter has jam resistant HF and UHF radio systems, AN/APX-100 identification friend or foe (IFF) interrogator.

    The weapons on the Chinook helicopter are less great than some of the other helicopters like a Apache or even a Black Hawk. But still the Chinook helicopter is very deadly with its Three machine guns. Two of the machine guns can be mounted to the crew door on the starboard side. One of the machine guns can be mounted to the window-mount on the port side. It is also equipped with an AAr-54 missile warning system in January 2010.

    The Chinook helicopter’s has a great cargo system. It is a triple-hook system, which provides stability to large external loads or a lot of smaller loads. Using this good cargo system it can travel at speeds up to 260km/h carrying a 155mm howitzer (artillery cannon) under it. The Chinook helicopter’s cabin has 43m^3 of cargo space. The Chinook helicopter can carry up to two HMMWVs (high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle) or one HMMWV and a 105mm howitzer gun and the crew to operate it. The Chinook can carry 33 fully equipped troops to 50 troops, depending on what is being carried and the mission.

    As you can see in the picture of the Chinook it has two sets of propellers. It is also equipped with two T55-L-712 turboshaft engines, which pod-mounted on either side of the rear pylon under the rear rotor blades. The Chinook’s engine has a continuous power of 3000shp and a maximum power of 3750shp.

     A really cool thing about the Chinook helicopter is that it’s back stabilizer isn’t a tail rotor. The Chinook used a second set of propellers that are safely above the troops heads when they are entering or exiting the helicopter. Skilled pilots can  hover with only the rear landing wheels touching the ground to unload. It would be to cool to become one of these skilled pilots one day in my military career.