Having first flown sixty years ago,long before anyone had thought to incorporate features such as crashworthiness and visual,acoustic,thermal and radio signature reduction in to helicopter designs,the Chinook has long been recognised as obsolescent by the United States' Army.
Over the years,there have been many attempts to develop a replacement for the Chinook,such as the Aerial Cargo Transport,Future Transport Rotorcraft,Air Maneuver Transport,Joint Heavy Lift and later Joint Future Theater Lift projects but,unfortunately,the United States' Army is about as good at developing military helicopters as the England football team is at World Cup penalty shootouts,having not successfully developed a new helicopter since the Apache,which first flew forty-six years ago,since then thousands of millions of United States' dollars have been wasted on a long series of failures such as the Comanche and Arapaho.
Over the same period,the United Kingdom's helicopter industry has successfully developed the Merlin and Wildcat helicopters,the latter being delivered both on time and on budget,a stark contrast to comparable American and European projects.
Nevertheless,the United States' Army's unimpressive record has clearly impressed Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey,who in July of Twenty Twenty signed a Memorandum of Agreement intended "to share and understand each nation’s conceptual thinking for the development and application of Rotary Wing Capability",which is rather like asking Gerald Ratner to share tips on jewelry retailing,Mister Heappey concluded: "I could not be, nor have been, any clearer that this is absolutely not about the UK purchasing US kit.".
Picture: Original image Sergeant Charles Probst,United States' Army photograph,modifications by unknown artist,Bell Helicopter
The United States' Army's plans to terminate Chinook production and instead invest in Future Vertical Lift,it's most recent ill conceived rotorcraft project,have run in to opposition from American politicians more interested in protecting eighteen thousand jobs in their constituencies than in equipping their army with modern helicopters.
As the Littoral Combat Ship project demonstrated,American politicians are happy to waste tens of thousands of millions of dollars on useless equipment as long as it benefits their electorate and campaign donors,British politicians are also keen to buy useless military equipment to protect jobs,as long as it is not British made equipment,or British jobs.
On the Nineteenth of November,Twenty Twenty the United Kingdom's Prime Minister,Boris Johnson,told Parliament: "Our plans will safeguard hundreds of thousands of jobs in the defence industry,protecting livelihoods across the UK and";"allow our new investment to be focused on the technologies that will revolutionise warfare";"to restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe".
Six months later,his Secretary of State for Defence threatened thousands of jobs in the British helicopter industry by ordering more American built Chinook helicopters,the last of which shall be entering service seventy years after the Chinook first flew (and may still be in service after it's centenary) and none of which shall be suited to naval use.
The Chinook entered service with the Royal Air Force as an army support asset back in Nineteen Eighty,despite at one point being intended to provide logistical support for Royal Air Force Harriers,a concept which was as absurd as the Harrier it's self,as they were based behind friendly lines and could easily be supplied by truck.
British forces first used the Chinook in combat during the Falklands War,being incapable of operating from most warships,four of them sailed south from Ascension Island in a disassembled state on the Steam Ship Atlantic Conveyor,three subsequently being lost when that ship was hit by Exocet missiles,leaving the task force crippled by it's dependence on a single Royal Air Force heavy lift helicopter and a large number of Royal Navy and British Army helicopters,such as the Scout,Wasp,Gazelle,Lynx,Wessex and Sea King,none of which could carry as much as a Chinook,but all of which could operate from warships.
Four decades later,the Royal Navy and British Army now have new Wildcat helicopters which are well suited to operating from warships,but which have little useful payload,while the Royal Air Force is purchasing new Chinooks,which have adequate payload but which are inherently unsuited to naval use and incapable of operating from most British warships,thanks to which the British armed forces shall be lumbered with the same problem they had four decades ago for the next forty years.
The Ministry of Defence is clearly not a learning institution.
Is it Mister Wallace?
9 comments:
Just because an airframe was designed a long time ago doesn't mean that it's incapable of fulfilling its role. I'm not even sure if some of the constraints you mention are a real problem, how stealthy do you want a helicopter to be/can you make a helicopter?
The constraint of using Chinooks at sea was the difficulty of maintenance. That problem has been addressed see below.
https://www.navylookout.com/in-photos-hms-queen-elizabeth-arrives-in-gibraltar/
As for the comment about RAF using the chinook to support harriers, that was an idea, nothing more. The harrier wasn't a mistake, it was one of Britain's most successful fighters in sales and longevity, plus has an excellent combat history.
Hello Fruitman,
the Chinook is certainly capable of fulfilling the role it was designed for,which was to provide transport to a land based army sixty years ago.
It's role was never to operate from ships in support of naval operations,which is what the Ministry of Defence is using it for.
Many modern combat helicopters have signature reduction features built in,including the Wildcat which is in service with the British Army and Royal Navy,of course,there are practical limitations as to how far this may be taken as many signature reduction features increase weight,drag and cost or reduce the efficiency of the engines and lift systems,which is why helicopters with very low signatures are few in number and reserved for special operations.
Maintenance is only one of many problems associated with operating the Chinook at sea,it is not clear how pictures of a Chinook on a ship demonstrate that problems such as corrosion of the magnesium alloy ramp hinge in a salt water environment have been solved,but those pictures do demonstrate that a single Chinook takes up as much space on the aircraft lift as four Merlins and as much space in the hangar as,at least,half a dozen Merlins or sixty trucks,two fifths of the hangar space is taken up by just two Chinooks with their rotors spread.
One need only look at pictures of Sea Kings stowed on Hermes,Invicible,Fearless and Intrepid during the Falklands War to understand how the Chinook's lack of rotor folding can have a crippling effect on flight deck operations,even on a large ship.
It also cannot land on many Royal Navy warships at all,such as the Type 23 frigate.
It may land on the flight deck of a Type 26 Frigate or Type 45 destroyer but cannot be stowed in the hangar with it's rotors spread and it is not clear in what sea state it could recover as it lacks basic naval helicopter equipment such as a deck harpoon.
The Chinook is incapable of contributing to the defence of a naval force,or ground force,when it's transport capabilities are not needed as it lacks useful weapons and sensors,yet it takes up the same space as a larger number of helicopters which could contribute to both offensive and defensive land and sea operations.
Using Chinooks to support the Harriers was an idea that was taken seriously at the time,there are references to it in books going back decades,and the army was worried about it.
The Harrier was one of the worst ideas anyone has ever come up with,to take off and land vertically was not only entirely unnecessary,it also inevitably resulted in an aircraft which was bigger,heavier,less safe and more expensive for any given level of capability,and that would have been well understood by engineers at the time,the only benefit was the ability to operate from ships which did not have catapults and arrestor wires but that is not what the Harrier was designed or procured for anyway!
Grand Logistics.
The chinook doesn't have to land on a Type 23 to fulfil its mission, loads can be underslung.
The difficulty which the Queen Elizabeth class resolves is at sea maintenance, that prolongs the period of time which they can operate. The fact that, as the article mentions, other aircraft can sit under the rotors reduces the problem of space. On the deck of the QE you get a scale for just how big the ships are, their ability to handle numbers of these helicopters is impressive and a serious force enabler. Corrosion is a problem which many aircraft suffer at sea and is something that professionals have dealt with for years.
Unless you have a different reference your source says the idea of Chinooks supporting harriers was not taken seriously at all. Page 68 of the RAF Harrier Story dismisses that suggestion as well.
Given its unique ability to fight from austere landing strips or ships the idea of the harrier has proven it's worth. One of the first parties interested in it was the Royal Navy who could see the potential and realised that stopping then landing is inherently safer than landing then stopping, the higher sortie rate is another benefit. The fact it was one of Britain's most successful cold war fighter designs and is still flying today shows the idea was right.
Hello Fruitman,
you appear to be assuming that the only naval role of a Chinook is to deliver sling loads and it is easy to understand why you might come to that conclusion.
Chinooks cannot hunt submarines.
Chinooks cannot sink ships.
Chinooks cannot shoot down aircraft.
Chinooks cannot provide Airborne Early Warning (A.E.W.).
Chinooks cannot destroy vehicles and artillery.
Chinooks cannot provide surveillance and reconnaissance.
Chinooks cannot land on a Type 23 frigate to pick up marines.
Chinooks cannot land on a Type 23 frigate to deliver a damage control party.
Chinooks cannot land on a Type 23 frigate to evacuate casualties.
Chinooks cannot even deliver sling loads to a Type 23 frigate unless it is close to a ship they are able to operate from,as British warships are often thousands of miles apart that means the Chinook often won't be delivering sling loads at all as it cannot be based on the frigate.
Fortunately there are other helicopters purpose designed for naval use which are able to do the things which Chinooks cannot do,so why waste money taking dead weight to sea?
The problems with taking Chinooks to sea extend far beyond maintenance,some of the problems were outlined in Joint Shipboard Helicopter Operations,but there are many more issues not mentioned there such as floatation devices,emergency crew egress,deck locks,sink rates,et ceteri.
See here:
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524038.pdf
It may be possible to fit a small helicopter like a Wildcat in the vicinity of a Chinook,it is not possible to pack chinooks as tightly as dedicated naval helicopters and that is what is needed on a warship.
See Here:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205018862
Having been very close to a Queen Elizabeth class carrier,they are far smaller than they appear in pictures,and the Lightning far quieter than one might expect.
When on operations those ships are going to have forty aircraft aboard and dozens of vehicles for marines,with the landing and take off areas kept clear for flying,there is going to be little space left,either in the hangar or on the flight deck,for Chinooks,each of which takes up as much room as several Lightnings or half a dozen Merlins.
You may be familiar with the phrase "force multiplier",when on naval operations the Chinook is more of a "force divider".
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Corrosion is a problem which naval aircraft are designed to be more resistant to as it is time consuming and expensive to deal with,as well as being a safety hazard,unfortunately the Chinook was never designed for naval use and is vulnerable to corrosion in a marine environment.
As the Australians have pointed out: "CH-47F Chinooks are exposed to the corrosive Townsville environment";"Townsville is a salt laden environment and being able to get the aircraft out of such an environment quickly was important";"If you can get an aircraft out of a salt-laden environment within about an hour and reduce the humidity below a critical point, corrosion was found by the Defence Science and Technology Group to stop." and "Defence noted that these factors could contribute to a reduced operational life of the capability and inefficiencies in the support elements of the CH-47F capability.".
It is difficult to keep a Chinook out of a "salt laden environment" when it is on a ship.
The claim that Chinooks were wanted to support the Harriers has been made in print in a number of books long before anyone had heard of the internet,it would be rather time consuming to go through a library of hundreds of books to find which ones but as you claim that "the idea of Chinooks supporting harriers was not taken seriously at all",perhaps other readers would like to know exactly what the Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal had to say about it:
"This situation was not helped by a debate in 1978-80 when the
RAF was discussing the acquisition of the Chinook and the option to
support the Germany Harrier Force in the field.
Such a discussion only led to an Army ‘suspicion’ that the Chinook would, ‘on the day’, not be allocated to 1(BR) Corps operations.
Suspicions were reinforced when Boeing, probably in an effort to increase the original Chinook buy, produced a study showing the attributes of a Chinook deployed in
support of Harrier field operations."
The Harrier has killed many pilots and crippled British air combat operations for decades because it is far more expensive than a conventional aircraft with similar capabilities,there are safer and cheaper ways to operate from austere landing strips which do not involve landing vertically,as the Swedes have demonstrated.
The Royal Navy's interest in the aircraft was a consequence of being stripped of their far more capable catapult launched aircraft,the Harrier has one of the worst accident rates of modern combat aircraft,almost four times higher than the catapult launched Hornet,is that what you mean by "stopping then landing is inherently safer than landing then stopping"?
See here:
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/why-harrier-jets-crash/
Given that neither Harriers nor Sea Harriers have ever generated higher sortie rates than conventional aircraft on combat operations,it is not clear why you say "higher sortie rate is another benefit".
The Harrier was never a "cold war fighter design",though the Sea Harrier was,apart from the United States' Marine Corps,which only bought it because nothing else could fly from the United States' Navy's amphibious ships,only a handful were exported which is hardly surprising given the limited capability,high cost and high accident rates inherent in a vertical landing aircraft.
Grand Logistics.
The chinook can destroy artillery, the ACH-47A demonstrated that potential.
It can move personnel to Type 23, via underslung carriage, regularly done the early days of the offshore industry.
As for the other items it can't do, it's a transport aircraft, criticising it for not being a sub hunter is pointless, you might as well criticise a 4 tonne truck for not being able to clear naval minefields.
The chinook is a useful addition to operations, not a replacement for other helicopters, the Queen Elizabeth class brings out that 10 tonne lift possiblity which other helicopters can't. It's always going to be an extra, that's why it's a force enabler.
That's a long way to say there's no other references. The quote you give backs up what I said. It was a suspicion, a thought, but as the Harrier story document I referenced says, it was not a plan and that suspicion was incorrect. Boeing were happy to come up with ideas to sell more helicopters, that's what sales people do.
Sweden has a huge area with long roads to build their alternative landing strips on, the RAF in Germany had a small box in a highly populated country, the ability to build alternative landing fields wasn't as available. In addition the harrier could land in urban areas and on ships which Swedish fighters couldn't.
The Royal Navy had its first deck landing in 1963, CVA was cancelled in 1966.
Sortie rates are higher for harrier carriers, the landing cycle is far easier and the potential for sorties being lost due to equipment failure on the cats or traps is eliminated.
Inherent means inherent, stopping then landing is inherently safer than landing then stopping. In the early days of jet aircraft carrier operations the RN would lose over a hundred aircraft a year on the carriers, that's why they looked at the harrier concept.
The harrier had a terrible record for losses in the first iteration, which isn't surprising as it was a new technology and that regularly happens. Since the second generation came along the main cause of failure has been loss of engine power, in a single engine aircraft that's fatal, in a twin engine F18 it's not. Try comparing it to a similar single engine aircraft doing a similar role and the losses are comparable.
Not only was the harrier a cold war fighter design, it's Britain's most successful post war fighter and has more confirmed kills than the US Navy's F14.
A handful? Through it's various iterations has seen over 870 built, making it the most successful British design since the Hawker Hunter.
Hello Fruitman,
a handful of Chinook attack helicopters served in Vietnam,they suffered such high attrition rates that no more were ever built,today there are none in service anywhere and there never were any in service in the United Kingdom,so no,Chinooks cannot destroy artillery.
There are many exiting ways in which helicopters can deploy personnel without landing,including ladders,ropes,slings and winches,none of which is routinely used as they are considered time consuming or risky,or both,personnel routinely board helicopters after they have put down,as this is the safest and most practical method,at least it is if you are not trying to use a Chinook to put people on a Type 23 frigate.
It is perfectly appropriate to criticise the limited utility of the Chinook when the armed forces can only afford to operate a small number of helicopters and a naval task force can only carry a handful of those,not having enough aircraft for the task at hand is the difference between winning and losing and losing is unpleasant.
The Chinook is always a replacement for other aircraft,money spent on it is money not spent on other helicopters and space consumed by it is space which could be used by larger numbers of more useful aircraft,it's lift capacity is the only benefit it brings.
The Chinook is not "an extra",it is consuming money and space which could be put to better use with a different helicopter,which is why it is a force divider.
There are many other references to the Chinook being wanted to support the Harrier and if you spend many decades reading books on the subject you may come across them,there is a world beyond the internet.
You said "the idea of Chinooks supporting harriers was not taken seriously at all",the quote demonstrates that it was taken seriously by senior people in the Royal Air Force,the British Army and at Boeing over a two year period,the idea may have been rejected but that does not mean it was not taken seriously.
Sweden is a sparsely populated country with few roads,Germany has a very dense,and famous,road network and hundreds of miles of straight roads were within the thousands of square miles of 1BR Corps' area,those roads had been used by aircraft during the Second World War and Harriers exercised on them during the Cold War,as did many other aircraft which could not land vertically such as the American Thunderbolt and Hercules.
The Harrier has enough trouble landing safely on open ground without being subjected to the turbulence of landing in an urban area,why would you want to do that when all those lovely long stretches of straight autobahn are available in the countryside?
Harrier was not intended to operate from ships,it was designed for use as a bomb truck in Germany,the navalised Sea Harrier only entered service when the catapult equipped aircraft carriers were withdrawn,the Swedes had proposed a carrier capable variant of the Gripen as an aircraft designed to land on improvised runways has a lot in common with one designed to operate from ships.
The Harrier did not land on an aircraft carrier in Nineteen Sixty-three as it did not have it's first flight until Nineteen Sixty-seven,a year after CVA-01 had been cancelled,the aircraft which did land on Ark Royal was an experimental P.1127,at the time there were plans for the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to adopt a supersonic vertical landing aircraft,called the P.1154,the naval version of which was cancelled in favour of the catapult launched Phantom in Nineteen Sixty-three,three years before the new carriers were cancelled,the Sea Harrier first flew a dozen years after that.
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There are articles about sortie generation on this blog dating back a decade or more,that said,it is always good to learn new things,perhaps you could share your expertise in this area by answering a few questions?
In which place and on which date did vertical landing aircraft generated more combat sorties per aircraft per day than has been done by conventional catapult launched aircraft?
How can an aircraft which must spend more time undergoing maintenance,because of the complexity of the systems required to take off and land vertically,generate more sorties per day than a simpler conventional aircraft which spends less time undergoing maintenance and therefore is able to spend more time flying?
By what new fangled form of mathematics,hitherto unknown to mankind,can a difference of a matter of seconds in the time taken to launch or recover an aircraft make any significant difference to sortie rates when a combat aircraft flies a only handful of combat sorties in a twenty-four hour period?
Failures of catapults and arresting gear are rare,they have been used successfully on dozens of aircraft carriers for decades and are a very mature and well understood technology,for example,if an arrestor wire failed,the aircraft would simply go round while a new wire was installed in minutes and,if there was no time for that,there are several other wires which may be used instead,catapults are expected to complete thousands of launches between failures.
When you claim that the Harrier is "inherently safer" than the Hornet,despite having far higher accident rates,are you using your own definition of the words "inherent" and "safe" or the dictionary definition,and why exactly would transitioning from wing borne flight to thrust borne flight and then hovering be "inherently safer" than flying in to the deck?
It is simply not true to say that the Royal Navy looked at the harrier concept because of heavy loss rates in "the early days of jet aircraft carrier operations",the Royal Navy did not look at the Harrier until it had no other option when it's Phantoms were phased out in the seventies,a long time after "the early days of jet aircraft carrier operations",and the Phantoms had been adopted in preference to the vertical landing P.1154.
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The Harrier has a terrible record today in it's most recent iteration,the Harrier II,half a century after the Harrier first flew,it is no longer new technology.
The Harrier II has far higher accident rates than other combat aircraft,even single engined aircraft like the Fighting Falcon,and the original Harrier I was even worse:
"The first Harrier model, the AV-8A had a Class A mishap rate of 31.77 accidents per 100,000 flight hours.
The Marines improved the rate to 11.44 per 100,000 hours with the introduction of the AV-8B in the mid-1980s, according to Miller.
By contrast, the Harrier has more than twice the accident rate of the F-16, more than three times the rate of the F/A-18, and about five times the rate of A-10."
See here:
https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-marine-corps-love-hate-relationship-with-the-av-8-harrier/
It is therefore not correct to say that "comparing it to a similar single engine aircraft doing a similar role and the losses are comparable".
Harrier was never a fighter,it was a ground attack aircraft,it has never shot down anything,unlike the Sea Harrier and the Tomcat,which has one hundred and thirty-five kills to it's name.
Yes,"apart from the United States' Marine Corps" only a handful were exported as stated.
The United States built it's own Harier IIs and exported some,apart from the United States' Marines,the United Kingdom's only Harrier export was a handful sold to Spain,no British built Harrier IIs were exported,except when they were retired and sold for parts salvage,though components of American built aircraft,including of the small number they sold to Spain and Italy,were manufactured in the United Kingdom.
This is an export record which compares poorly with aircraft such as the Meteor,Vampire,Sea Hawk,Venom,Canberra,Hunter,Jaguar,Tornado and Typhoon.
Grand Logistics.
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