Boeing CH-47 Chinook variant
Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC1
The Chinook HC1 (Helicopter, Cargo Mark 1, also written HC.1 or HC Mk 1) was the first British version of the CH-47 and the aircraft that gave the Royal Air Force a genuine heavy-lift helicopter. Broadly comparable to the US Army's CH-47C and initially powered by Lycoming T55-L-11E turboshafts, it entered service in December 1980, more than a decade after a first order placed in 1967 had been cancelled. Its combat debut came only eighteen months later in the Falklands War, where the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor left British forces with a single working example, ZA718 'Bravo November'. Forty-one HC1s were built in all; the survivors went through the HC1B modification and, from 1993, were rebuilt by Boeing to CH-47D standard as the HC2, the foundation of every later RAF Chinook.
- 41
- Units built
History
An order eleven years late
The British Chinook story opens with a false start. In March 1967 the United Kingdom ordered fifteen Boeing Vertol CH-47Bs to replace the Royal Air Force's Bristol Belvedere HC.1, and the name Chinook HC Mk 1 (Helicopter, Cargo, Mark 1) was already reserved for them. A defence spending review in November of the same year cancelled the purchase, and the idea lay dormant for more than ten years.
It returned in 1978, when a requirement was announced for a heavy-lift helicopter to succeed the Westland Wessex. The resulting contract, worth 200 million US dollars, revived the HC1 designation. Sources differ on the size of that first batch: the Wikipedia article on the UK variants gives thirty-three aircraft, while the article on ZA718 and the Newark Air Museum give thirty. The helicopters were comparable to the US Army's CH-47C, used Lycoming T55-L-11E engines and entered service in December 1980. One of the last of the initial run, ZA718, Boeing construction number B-849, reached the RAF in February 1982 and joined No. 18 Squadron.
The Falklands: four embarked, one survivor
The HC1 had been in squadron service for little more than a year when the South Atlantic crisis broke. In April 1982 four No. 18 Squadron Chinooks were loaded aboard the container ship Atlantic Conveyor, together with Wessex, Sea Harrier and Harrier GR.3 aircraft and the whole of the second-line maintenance equipment. Their rotor blades were removed and stowed inside the cabins and the airframes were sealed in rubberised covers; on the voyage technicians refitted the blades at sea, a first for such a complex machine.
On 25 May 1982 Argentine Navy Super Étendards hit the ship with Exocet missiles. Fire and smoke spread so quickly that none of the helicopters still on deck could be flown off, and three Chinooks went down with the vessel. The fourth, ZA718, known from its squadron code BN as 'Bravo November', was airborne collecting freight from HMS Glasgow; it helped evacuate the ship and later landed on the carrier HMS Hermes, earning the nickname 'The Survivor'.
From then on it was the only British heavy-lift helicopter in the islands, with no spares, manuals, lubricants or tools. Even so it moved roughly fifteen hundred troops, 95 casualties, 650 prisoners of war and 550 tonnes of cargo. On one night sortie, flown by Squadron Leader Dick Langworthy with Flight Lieutenant Andy Lawless, it lost visibility in a snowstorm and, misled by a faulty altimeter, struck the sea at about 185 km/h. Spray entered the engines and the co-pilot's door was torn away, yet Langworthy regained control and brought it back to San Carlos, the first of several Distinguished Flying Crosses won aboard the airframe.
Losses and a second batch
By 1984 the fleet had lost four aircraft: the three aboard the Atlantic Conveyor and ZA676, which crashed on a training flight. Eight further HC1s were ordered to replace them and enlarge the force; delivered between 1984 and 1986, they already had the CH-47D's T55-L-712 turboshafts. That brought total HC1 production to forty-one.
After the war four Chinooks formed the ChinDet detachment in the islands, which became No. 1310 Flight in 1983 and merged with No. 1564 Flight in 1986 to re-form No. 78 Squadron. The Falklands weather was hard on the type. On 13 May 1986 ZA715 flew into a hill in a blizzard and three of those aboard died, the inquiry blaming disorientation in white-out conditions. On 27 February 1987 ZA721 crashed near Mount Pleasant on a post-servicing test flight, killing all seven aboard, possibly because a boost actuator jammed. On 25 July 1989 ZA717 was written off in a non-fatal accident shortly after taking off from the same base. In Germany, on 6 May 1988, ZA672 struck a pier at Hannover Airport while taxiing, reared up, fell on its side and burned, killing three crew.
Evolution: HC1B, HC2 and HC2A
All forty-one HC1s were later fitted with metal rotor blades under the HC1B modification. From 1993 the thirty-two survivors went back to Boeing for a complete rebuild to CH-47D standard, gaining composite blades, a redesigned cockpit, redundant electrical systems, an improved flight control system and new avionics, and emerged as the Chinook HC2. ZA718 was the first airframe converted, in 1993-94. Three new-build HC2s followed from 1995, along with six HC2As ordered that year with a strengthened front fuselage for a future refuelling probe.
Legacy
Several of those airframes kept flying for decades under later designations. ZA718 was upgraded repeatedly up to HC6A standard, served until 2022 and is now part of the RAF Museum collection at Cosford. ZA717, written off in 1989, reached the Newark Air Museum from RAF Cranwell in February 2018 as a badly damaged fuselage missing many parts; with original spares almost impossible to find, volunteers fabricated sections such as the nose by hand so that it can become a learning space for schoolchildren and cadets.