Boeing CH-47 Chinook HC3

The Chinook HC3 was Britain's answer to a specific need: giving its special forces their own heavy helicopters, able to fly long distances, at night and in poor weather. In 1995 the Ministry of Defence ordered eight advanced Chinooks from Boeing, conceived as a low-cost version of the US Army's MH-47E and based on the CH-47SD airframe; Spanish-language Wikipedia describes them as a blend of the two. In Royal Air Force service they were designated Chinook HC.3 (Mk3 in official documents).

Compared with the HC2 transports, the HC3s were tailored to the needs of the SAS and the Special Boat Service: greater range thanks to extra fuel tanks, in-flight refuelling probes for long transits, satellite communications, night vision sensors and improved navigation. The eight aircraft were to cost 259 million pounds, and the forecast in-service date was November 1998.

Boeing delivered them in 2001, but British military aviation could not grant them airworthiness certificates, because there was no way to certify their avionics software. According to press reports, the ministry had declined to pay for a fully digital cockpit to save money, and the compromise did not meet British defence safety standards. The National Audit Office (NAO) also found that officials had not asked for the software access code when placing the order; that code was needed to prove compliance with the standards, and Boeing later refused to hand it over, citing intellectual property. The Times claimed the ministry intended to integrate the software itself, without Boeing, to cut costs; the ministry denied it, while admitting the order had been bungled.

Without certification, the HC3s could only fly in visual meteorological conditions: above about 150 metres (500 feet), only in clear skies. In practice they were confined to limited flight trials and kept in climate-controlled hangars, taking no part in Afghanistan or Iraq. A 2004 NAO report linked the problem to a six-day delay for the first SAS team to enter Afghanistan and estimated that another 127 million pounds would be needed to bring them up to standard. Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, called it "one of the most incompetent procurements of all time". Sir Peter Spencer, who inherited the project as head of the Defence Procurement Agency, said the original requirement had been impossible: one hundred essential requirements, one of them protection against any missile from any direction, for a very small production run.

In November 2006 it was expected that the Defence Aviation Repair Agency would fit the Thales TopDeck avionics to the HC3s (the "Fix to Field" project). In March 2007, however, the ministry cancelled it and chose instead to revert the avionics to the HC2/2A standard, at an estimated cost of 50 to 60 million pounds; the urgency of getting more helicopters to Afghanistan meant the decision was taken quickly, although the main contract later passed the normal approvals and was placed in December 2007. Meanwhile, special operations were covered by HC2/2A aircraft adapted with a Night Enhancement Package, a solution the NAO called imperfect.

On 4 June 2008 the NAO published a scathing report: progress had been protracted, it worsened the helicopter shortage and, had Fix to Field moved faster, the reversion would have been unnecessary. It put the total cost, from purchase to reversion, at some 422 million pounds (excluding sustaining the night package); other estimates spoke of 500 million. On 6 July 2009 the first of the eight modified HC3s made its first test flight at Boscombe Down, as part of the reversion's flight trials; with them the British Chinook fleet was due to reach 47 aircraft.

Their story continued in Project Julius, launched in December 2008 to upgrade 46 Chinook HC2/2A and HC3 helicopters: a digital cockpit based on Thales TopDeck, multifunction displays, a digital moving map, an electronic flight bag, a nose-mounted forward-looking infrared sensor and more powerful T55-714 engines. The HC3s also received Boeing's Digital Automatic Flight Control System (DAFCS) in place of their analogue flight controls, and were redesignated Chinook HC5.