The Boeing CH-47 Chinook

this video is brought to you by squarespace whether it's your new profession or just a lifelong passion start your journey to website glory with squarespace check out their amazing all-in-one platform through the link in the description below more about them in a bit [Music] by the mid-1950s the transition from piston to jet engines was well underway among most of the world's air powers due to the introduction of revolutionary aircraft like messerschmitt me262s and dorado ar234s even by 1944 it was abundantly clear that the days of once baunted engines like the rolls-royce merlins were definitely numbered early jets were unreliable and relatively underpowered but huge advances were made quickly and by the following decade there was standard issue on nearly all fighters and interceptors as well as some bombers like subsonic b-52 strata fortresses and supersonic b-58 hustlers gas turbine helicopters had been developed years earlier in france and elsewhere but most never got past the prototype phase and those that did were produced in small numbers most helicopters of the day were powered by big radial engines but that was destined to change in 1956 when the u.s army announced its intention to replace its aging ch-37 mojaves with newer and more advanced twin rotor machines with dual gas turbine engines featuring one large rotor measuring 72 feet 22 meters from tip to tip mojaves were powered by a pair of pratt whitney r 2854 double wasp 18-cylinder radial engines each of which produced about 2 000 horsepower and are an absolute mouthful to say able to carry more than two dozen troops and their gear or about ten thousand pounds that's about four and a half thousand kilos of cargo at 120 miles per hour mojaves were capable machines but they were reaching the end of their service lives and the army was looking for a serious upgrade [Music] originally developed by vertol which light became boeing rotorcraft systems design work on the new helicopter that would eventually become the ch-47 began in mid-1957 designated v-107 vertil's ambitious twin rotor machine won a joint army air force design competition in the fall of 1958. having beat out proposals from other more well-known manufacturers like sikorsky by all outward appearances boeing had a real winner on its hands and the following year the army ordered a number of prototypes for testing an evaluation boeing delivered the aircraft in short order but though they performed well army brass considered them too heavy for the assault role and too small and underpowered for the medium and heavy lift roles however developing an entirely new aircraft on the ground wasn't really an option because the army was anxious to get its new helicopter into service sooner rather than later to speed things up they ordered an enlarged variant known as the model 114 which shared many components and design elements with his predecessor the new and improved 114 made its maiden hovering flight in september of 1961 shortly after which it was designated the ch-47 chinook the letters and numbers were assigned in accordance with the tri-service aircraft designation system while the name referenced native american peoples from the pacific northwest but though the army was ready to place its first wall of the following year funding wasn't available and it appeared as though they'd have to make do with the less capable v107 like it usually does however the army eventually found the money it needed and ch-47 production began in 1962. boeing's ch-47 chinooks and bell's uh-1 hueys were the first mass-produced turbine-powered helicopters but though the former would play a significant role as the latter in the south asian conflict hughes would go on to become one of the most persistent and recognizable symbols of america's military exploits in vietnam excluding rotors chinooks are 52 feet long 12 and a half feet wide and about 19 feet tall each is crewed by a pilot co-pilot flight engineer or load master and between two and three gunners depending on the variant and mission capable of lifting off at nearly fifty thousand pounds that's about twenty and a half thousand kilograms chinooks have such high power rate ratios that their cargo capacity is roughly equal to that of the mass of the aircraft itself typical internal loads include 33 soldiers and their gear 24 stretchers with attending medics and equipment or some combination of these most loading and unloading is done via wide ramps in the rear of the fuselages though various side doors can be used as well ch47s are also capable of carrying bulky items like m198 155 millimeter towed howitzers which can weigh about 16 000 pounds slung from hard points under the fuselage if you've watched our video on operation mount hope over on side projects you already know that this is how a partially disassembled russian mi-35 attack helicopter was taken from libyan forces in chad by american night stalkers in 1988 if you haven't seen it it's an insanely cool story go check it out but after you're done with this video their aircraft of choice the mh-47a had been used by u.s special forces since the 1990s derived from ch-47c airframes mh47es have more fuel capacity and greater ranges as well as more powerful radars that allow them to fly close to the ground at high speeds at night and in poor weather regardless of variant all ch-47s powered by twin turboshaft engines housed in the cells protruding from either side of the rear rotor pylon power is delivered to the four and a half rotors by drive shafts and if one engine fails the other can supply power to both through a central gearbox each rotor measures nearly 60 feet that's 18 meters in diameter nearly half of which overlaps in the middle of the aircraft to ensure that they don't slam into one another even in the event of an engine loss the rotors are mechanically synchronized though the lycoming t-55 turboshaft engines on early variants produced about the same horsepower as the radial engines and the mojaves they replaced later versions got significant engine upgrades that nearly doubled total horsepower one of the most notable differences between ch-47s and traditional copters like huey's blackhawks and sea stallions is that chinooks have two main rotors instead of one since their rotors spin in opposite directions each cancels out the other's torques thereby making tail rotors for stabilization unnecessary this also makes ch47s less sensitive to shifts in tender of gravity which they often experience when loading unloading and air-dropping cargo and troops in addition twin-rotor designs allow more power to be used for lift and thrust which makes ch-47s surprisingly speedy for their size when they entered service in the early 1960s they were among the world's fastest helicopters and more than half a century later they're still one of the speediest in fact they're capable of exceeding 200 miles per hour only slightly slower than boeing's apache attack helicopters alright we'll get back to today's video in just a moment but first here's a word from today's video sponsor squarespace this is the age of creation everyone is out there on the internet making something and if you've got a great idea for a project you can move it from your head to the screen in front of you with squarespace it's the perfect web tool to help you fashion a website into whatever you want it to be maybe the hands-on type you've got lots of opinions and ideas about what exactly your site should look like if so fantastic squarespace gives you all the customization options that you could ever want with no updates no patches no technical bs to worry about or maybe you just need something functional something that works with minimal thoughts so you can stay focused on what your website contains rather than just what it looks like just use one of their quick beautiful templates to make a website that's both fresh and simple and once you're done setting 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personnel often overloaded chinook sometimes with disastrous consequences likewise sling loads were particularly precarious because the cargo often swung like giant pendulums beneath the helicopters and evenly distributing the weight of awkward and bulky items like artillery pieces was often nearly impossible nonetheless crews learned through trial and error and chinooks proved themselves invaluable to the war effort especially in regard to getting much-needed supplies to out-of-the-way hotspots quickly and evacuating wounded troops both of which made them particularly susceptible to ground fire due to their significant advantages in speed and cargo capacity ch-47s didn't generally haul troops as frequently as air calf hueys and since they were usually escorted by helicopter gunships or propeller-driven aircraft like douglas a1 skyraiders early models weren't armed however they presented relatively slow targets for vietnamese gunners on the ground and to give themselves some measure of self-defense crews began mounting m60 machine guns in the side and cargo doors these improvised setups did help but on one occasion frenzied gunners actually fired into the rotors of their own aircraft to eliminate this potentially fatal scenario later variants were equipped with door guns that had limited ranges of motion upward surely into the conflict it was also discovered that ch-47s couldn't carry as much weight in mountainous areas where the relatively thin air in their engines didn't make as much power and their rotors didn't produce as much lift similar problems were encountered in the lowlands too where high heat and humidity meant that loads often had to be reduced by as much as 20 percent the ingestion of dust into the engines was another constant problem that drastically accelerated the turbine blade wear increasing downtime and lessened overall engine life to address these and other issues later sea variants got more powerful engines equipped with better filters to remove dust and sand before it was sucked into the compressor at the height of the war the army had 21 chinook companies in vietnam totaling nearly 700 aircraft of them about 200 were lost in enemy fire or combat-related accidents [Music] over the years ch-47s have been used extensively in the middle east and north africa often by both sides in a single conflict in the mid-70s the libyan air force purchased two dozen ch-47cs manufactured under license by augusta in italy and they recruited western pilots and service technicians to fly and maintain them libyan chinooks flew transport and support missions into chad during the chatty and libyan conflict between the late 70s and 80s in addition back when the two countries were still on friendly enough terms to swap weapons for money iran bought dozens of chinooks from both boeing and augusta with the blessing of the american government most of which served in the iran-iraq war between 1980 and 1988. when war broke out in the falklands in april of 1982 chinooks were in service with both argentine and british forces argentina had four ch-47s one of which was destroyed early on by 30-millimeter cannon fire from an raf harrier while two more were captured and pressed into service on the british side at the chinooks in service with great britain three were destroyed when two exorcit anti-ship missiles fired from argentine's super ettandards slammed into the merchant ship atlantic conveyor on one occasion a single chinook airlifted more than 80 british troops to safety and many of the chinooks that participated in the campaign are still in service today [Music] hundreds of ch-47s have been deployed to the middle east since operation desert storm got underway in the summer of 1990. since then they've played a significant role in the united states global war on terror up until the rather abrupt departure from afghanistan in late 2021. like in vietnam chinooks were used extensively for heavy transport air assault missions and for ferrying troops to far-flung corners of the mountainous and largely inaccessible country again due to their twin rotor design they were often able to operate in high altitude areas where newer uh-60 blackhawks couldn't and by some estimates one ch-47 could do the work of five uh-60s though they were typically escorted by attack helicopters like ah-64 apaches a number of chinooks were shot down by the taliban including one that took a direct hit from an rpg just outside kabul in the summer of 2011. all 36 soldiers and crewmen including special forces members from the american army navy and air force as well as a few from nato allies were killed marking the event as the single deadliest helicopter incident of operation enduring freedom new variants like ch-47ds which entered service in the early 1980s featured more powerful engines and transmissions composite rotor blades redundant electric and hydraulic systems and redesigned cockpits that reduced the crew members workloads military versions have been exported to nations around the world including england morocco thailand greece japan and the netherlands to name a few far away however the us army and raf are the largest users of ch-47s whereas early variant engines collectively produced about 4000 horsepower new honeywell turboshafts and contemporary f models crank out nearly 10 000 horsepower in total hence over the years maximum takeoff weight has increased by nearly 20 000 pounds in addition some chinooks were converted into ach-47as in which the first a stands for attack these featured two fixed 20 millimeter cannons in the nose one turret mounted 40 millimeter grenade launcher multiple 50-caliber machine guns housed in pods on the size of the fuselage alongside 70 millimeter rockets or 30 caliber gatling gun style miniguns needless to say they packed a huge punch but conversion and maintenance costs were prohibitively expensive and in the end the copters were in greater demand as transport aircraft so the program was eventually scrapped of the four that were made one collided with another ch-47 on the tarmac one was downed by ground fire and another was lost a friendly fire when one of its 20-millimeter cannons threw a restricting pin and shot off its own front rotor other b or bomber models were tasked with hovering over stubborn ground targets like vietcong bunkers and dropping either napalm or tear gas canisters onto them another variant of which about 100 was a dedicated recovery model that served almost exclusively in retrieving downed aircraft either intact or in pieces some estimates suggest that in this role alone ch-47s recovered thousands of airplanes and helicopters worth billions of dollars arguably ch47s have assisted in disaster relief around the world more than any other helicopter in recent memory this is largely due to their twin rotor design and ability to transport heavy loads slung from hooks under their fuselages the latter of which allows them to carry large water bladders used to combat forest fires during both hurricanes andrew and katrina they were the backbone of relief efforts especially in areas that were inaccessible to vehicles due to road damage and flooding japanese ch-47s were also used to drop sea water on overheating reactors after the fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 to protect crews from radiation levels each was outfitted with lead plates in their floors even so flight times were limited to just 45 minutes and in the end they were never able to deliver enough water to keep reactors three and four cool [Music] despite their age chinooks are still in high demand around the world and they may remain in production and service for another three or four decades if so they'll become members of a very exclusive club composed solely of aircraft and weapon systems like the black dragon howitzer they remain in service for a century or more though the us army is currently considering other options through the future vertical lift program most designs haven't progressed past the concept phase to date nearly 1 400 ch-47s of all variants have been produced and in both developed and developing countries many of those still built in the 70s and 80s are still in use in the military as well as civilian applications like construction mining and oil extraction to this day [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 271,992

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Id: lVCjVB3kCa4

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022