The UK Royal Air Force has received the first of its Boeing CH-47 Chinooks upgraded to the HC5 standard.
Delivered to the service’s Odiham base in Hampshire on 22 March, the tandem-rotor helicopter is the first of eight HC3 models to undergo modernisation by Boeing under the Ministry of Defence’s Project Julius initiative.
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Worth over £400 million ($497 million), this effort sees the RAF’s fleet of legacy HC2- and HC3-model Chinooks receive a common modernised cockpit, including a digital automated flight control system and moving map displays, bringing them in line with newly delivered HC6 aircraft.
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Once the upgrade work is completed, the RAF will have a fleet of 60 Chinooks: 38 HC4s, eight HC5s and 14 HC6s.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
