Army Failure To Embrace Chinook Helicopter Upgrades Endangers Industrial Base

On March 28-30, the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) will host a “Global Force Symposium & Exposition” in Huntsville, Alabama. Working closely with relevant Army commands, AUSA has fashioned the symposium as a premier venue for illuminating how the service intends to transform itself.

A key feature of the symposium agenda is modernization of the industrial base, both public and private, that manufactures and sustains the tools of land warfare. The Army frequently states that it is seeking a collaborative relationship with the private sector in pursuit of a robust and reliable industrial base.

However, some of the choices the Army makes don’t seem calibrated to accomplish that goal. A case in point is the Army’s continuing resistance to modernizing its CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, an aircraft expected to remain in the active force through 2060.

Chinook is one of the fastest rotorcraft in the world, capable of reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour while carrying more cargo than any other helicopter in the Army fleet. Equipped with planned “Block II” upgrades, it will be the only helicopter the Army owns that can lift M777 howitzers and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Since the service has no real plan to replace Chinook, it is obvious the helicopter will have to be improved to keep up with emerging threats and technologies. The Block II upgrades will double its carrying capacity from the original baseline model while strengthening the structure and enhancing on-board electronics.

Items like the electrical system, the fuel system, the rotor system, the flight controls and the drive train will all be modernized. The crew will get better ballistic protection against hostile fire.

But after endorsing the Block II upgrades in 2017, the Army reversed itself in 2020 and stated that improvements for most of the Chinook fleet would be delayed at least five years.

The service will buy 69 special-operations variants of Chinook to replace its most aged rotorcraft, but the larger plan to acquire 465 Block II Chinooks for the rest of the Army is in abeyance—despite the absence of an alternative.

The Army’s failure to move forward on Block II places at risk the largest industrial complex in the Philadelphia region, the Boeing BA rotorcraft plant at Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. The plant’s other major program, the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor, is winding down, leaving Chinook as the only production line at the site

If Chinook were to cease production, the plant would likely close, following other industries in the lower Delaware Valley like refining and shipbuilding into history.

The region has suffered a severe decline in industrial activity since World War Two. In fact, the Chinook line is housed in a factory originally owned by the world’s biggest locomotive manufacturer—a company that no longer exists.

Boeing, a contributor to my think tank, employs over 4,000 workers at its Ridley Park site, but it has already launched two rounds of layoffs as business conditions have softened. If the Army does not move ahead on modernizing its only heavy-lift helicopter, the remaining jobs could be at risk within a few years.

And that is just just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Chinook has hundreds of suppliers scattered across the nation who also will have to get rid of skilled workers if the Block II program does not go forward.

Boeing says that several of those suppliers, companies responsible for vital onboard systems such as the transmission, might cease business entirely. That means restarting production after a hiatus could prove prohibitively expensive.

So, what looks like a delay to Army planners looks like something more ominous to the local congressional delegation. Members of Congress from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have banded together to keep Block II Chinook on track despite the Army’s distraction.

Lawmakers added $177 million to this year’s defense budget for four additional Block II aircraft beyond those requested for special operators, and additional money for procurement of long-lead items on future aircraft.

But securing annual add-ons from Congress to keep the program moving forward isn’t the optimum way to manage Chinook. Legislators are predictably incensed that the Army has not complied with language directing it to fund Block II upgrades that it will clearly need to field in the years ahead.

The Army argues that it has more pressing modernization needs, but the problem with that argument is that by the time Chinook upgrades become a pressing concern, the plant and its workers may no longer be there.

The time to fund upgrades to the heavy-lift fleet is when a warm production line, supply chain and workforce are in place. In other words, the time is now.

There is a bigger story here that doesn’t mesh well with the bold narrative about government-industry partnership likely to be advanced at the Global Forces Symposium & Exposition. The simple fact is that the Army has an uneven record of supporting its own industrial base.

During the last decade, it tried to mothball its only remaining tank plant in Lima, Ohio. Congress prevented that from happening, pointing out that you can mothball equipment but you can’t mothball workers. Blocking that closure now looks prescient in light of what is happening in Ukraine.

More recently, the Army ousted the incumbent manufacturer of its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle—a model acquisition program—and awarded the follow-on production contract to a company whose ability to execute at the price bid is highly questionable.

And then there is Boeing’s other rotorcraft plant in Mesa, Arizona. It faces the end of upgrades to the Apache APA attack helicopter later in this decade with no plan in place for how the Army will keep the Apache relevant and survivable in future fights. That helicopter too is supposed to remain in service through mid-century.

So while its industry partners will agree heartily with all the rhetoric coming out of the Army about modernizing the industrial base, they can be forgiven for wondering where it all leads. The service can begin restoring faith in its industrial strategy by complying with the law and funding Block II upgrades to its only heavy-lift helicopter.

As noted above, Boeing contributes to my think tank.