The first Indian Air Force CH-47F(I) Chinooks arrived at the Adani Group’ Mundra Port in Gujarat ahead of schedule and soon Four helicopters arrived on February 10th and after assembling will be flown to their home base in Chandigarh. Are scheduled to enter service later this year. India is the 19th nation to select the Chinook and the air force (IAF) will receive 15 helicopters ordered in September 2015 along 22 AH-64E Apaches in a $3.1 billion deal. Boeing had officially handed over the first Chinook transport helicopter to India at its facility in Philadelphia, US in the presence of Indian ambassador to US Harsh Shringla during the India-Chinook Transfer Ceremony.
Chinook helicopters are expected to be formally inducted into Indian Air Force service later this year and replace the IAF’s fleet of Soviet-era Mil Mi-26 ‘Halo’ heavy-lift helicopters, which entered service in the 1980s. the remaining 11 Chinooks will be similarly delivered to the IAF by March 2020. To accommodate the Chinooks the IAF has expanded its Mi-26 helicopter facility at a cost of INR1.5billion (USD20.9 million). Boeing has strengthened its supply chain with over 160 partners in India, and a JV to manufacture fuselages for Apache helicopters. Annual sourcing from India stands at $1 billion.
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is an American twin-engined, tandem rotor, heavy-lift helicopter developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and manufactured by Boeing Vertol (later known as Boeing Rotorcraft Systems). Chinook helicopters were introduced in 1962 as the CH-47 Chinook, and models A, B and C were deployed in Vietnam. As the product of a modernization program, which included refurbishing existing CH-47s, the first CH-47Ds were delivered in 1982 and were produced until 1994. A central element in the Gulf War, they continue to be the standard for the U.S. Army in the global campaign against terrorism. Since its introduction 1,179 Chinooks have been built.
