The World’s Most Iconic Helicopter | CH-47 Chinook

Right behind me is one of the most iconic and heaviest lifting military helicopters ever built. Now, it may seem weird that a helicopter capable of carrying so much can fly at such impressive speeds, but I think you'll find that there's quite a lot about this machine that makes it one of the most recognizable helicopters in the world. Now, if you guys are ready, I think it's about that time. Today, we're here with the Illinois Army National Guard to get our hands dirty with the CH-47 Chinook. Every so often, a machine comes along that is so well designed that its usefulness doesn't change over time. A good example? The mousetrap. And while this machine behind me is way more complicated, it's achieved a similar status. Over the years, the CH-47 has carried out missions all across the world, and its capabilities are staggering. But before we get too far, I want to take a second to dive a little bit deeper into that, just what makes the mighty Chinook so impressive. The CH-47 traces its origins all the way back to the Vietnam War, where it was first introduced in 1961. Like many U.S. Army helicopters, the name Chinook comes from a Native American tribe that was located in Washington State. It was designed to perform the Army's heavy lift missions, which can range from moving cargo and equipment on the battlefield to transporting troops and delivering critical supplies on humanitarian missions. At a first glance, you'll notice that this helicopter is massive. In fact, standing right next to it in person, it's even more massive. 52 feet long, to be exact. And when you include the rotors, it's a mind-boggling 98 feet in diameter. The shape of the Chinook's fuselage is quite different from your typical helicopters, and in place of a tail rotor, there's a second main rotor raised on a pedestal to keep the two sets of blades from hitting each other. With a max speed of 170 knots or 196 miles per hour, this thing can straight up cruise through the sky, allowing the Chinook to efficiently transport cargo and troops to the battlefield. If you're wondering how such a large helicopter is built to accomplish such a demanding mission, well, let me introduce you to these two engines right here, the Honeywell T-55s that give the Chinook its iconic look. These engines have powered every Chinook flight since it was first introduced back in 1961, and over the years, Honeywell has made several different modifications to increase the engine's capabilities. Today, the T-55 engine produces 5,000 shaft horsepower, an 150% increase from the original model made back in the early 1960s. In fact, right now, Honeywell has yet another upgrade in the works, as the CH-47 is expected to fly for at least 40 more years and needs to be ready for the next generation of warfighters. The future 714C upgrade will take the engine's shaft horsepower to 6,000, doubling the operating range for missions at max payload. Pretty impressive, right? Now, if you're like me, you're probably wondering if this thing comes with any weapons. Technically, being a cargo helicopter, the answer is no. However, the Chinook is often used for air assault missions to transport troops in and out of combat, and for these situations, up to three M240 machine guns can be equipped. However, the real protection comes from the fact that in these combat environments, the Chinook is often escorted by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. Now, the real advantage of the Chinook is its cargo capacity. There is a massive internal cargo area that can carry up to 28,000 pounds. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Let's bring in an expert, the individual who's responsible for managing everything that goes on back here. Staff Sergeant Josh Viagione with the Illinois Army National Guard. I'm a CH-47 flight engineer. What you see behind me is pretty much all of it's my responsibility. Everything from maintenance, launching the aircraft, cleaning it, anything that goes inside it pretty much falls on me. All right, if you want to step inside with me here a minute, we'll talk a little bit more about what we do. As far as maintenance, we kind of have to know every single nut and bolt of this helicopter. Anything that might have an issue is on us to fix, but also as a flight engineer, anything that happens in flight is our responsibility. So, anything that goes inside or is hanging underneath, it falls on us. We'll do troop movements. We've got seats for 33. Cargo, pretty much if it fits inside, we'll haul it as long as it doesn't exceed our floor limitations. And if it is too heavy, then we'll sling load it underneath. And that's where I'll walk up to this hole right here. And with my tail obviously attached to the floor, half of my body will be hanging out of this hole to hook up whatever we're going to haul underneath. And that becomes my responsibility. When we're not doing that, we can haul extra, you know, they're called an ERST tank, extended range fuel system. We can piggyback those together to fuel other aircraft or literally anything that'll fit inside. A lot of the cargo movement falls on us. So as you can see, the Chinook has some pretty remarkable capabilities. It's done a great job of staying up to date and is able to carry several times more cargo than any other helicopter used by the military. So now that we've seen the back, that really is only half this thing. And if you guys are ready, I say we move to the front to check out the cockpit. But before we do that, I think we better link up with someone who can tell us all about what it's like to fly such an incredible helicopter. What, so I don't get the super cool intro? I promise I just didn't want to overdo the slow-mo. And come on, you pilots are already super cool anyways. But seriously, I am super excited to introduce you guys to Mike Hewer, a Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard who's been flying Chinooks for almost 20 years. Hey everyone, I'm Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael Hewer with the Illinois Army National Guard, and I'm lucky enough to get to fly these things all around the country. Yeah, I mean for my time out here so far, it's been awesome to see the capabilities of this thing, but I've yet to get that pilot's perspective on just what it's like to fly the Chinook. I'll tell you what, let's take a look around the outside here, and then I'll show you the cockpit, and we'll go back outside. I'll show you where all the magic happens. It's gonna be awesome, let's do it. All right Sam, well so obviously you can tell we look different than any other helicopter out there. Yeah. We have tandem rotor systems, so we don't have a tail rotor like a conventional helicopter, but that allows us to use all of our engine power for lift instead of any robbing any for any anti-torque, which makes an incredible stable platform. Yeah, I was talking earlier how the rotors are like 100 feet in diameter, so I can't imagine how stable that must be. Super stable, super huge, and it's a great airframe to fly. So Sam, I know you've already talked a lot about these engines, but let me just let you know that we've got two of them, and each of them produces about 5,000 shaft horsepower, which is a lot of horsepower. The biggest question we usually get is what happens when one engine fails. Well, the rotor system is synchronized through driveshafting so that they never enter mesh, and even if we have one engine fail, each engine has enough power to keep us up in the air. So we've talked a lot about things that make this helicopter unique, but one thing we haven't hit on are the three cargo hooks along the bottom. Yeah, I've seen those down there. I assume you guys can carry some pretty heavy stuff. Yeah, we carry that. We use those to carry external cargo. Makes it loading and unloading a lot quicker than if we take it inside, and that way we can really move things across the battlefield a lot quicker. That's awesome. Look at those things. All right, Sam. So like I said, this is where the magic happens. In here, we've got our multifunction displays where we can display our map data and all of our systems information, keep tabs on what's going on with the aircraft and what's going on with the mission and all. We've got about seven radios we can use to communicate. The cyclic and thrust control levers are our flight controls and gives us all the information we need. Hey, Sam. So I've got to go get prepped for a flight that's taking off here in a few minutes. We've got an extra seat if you want to tag along. That would be insane. Absolutely. Well, I would suggest maybe you change your clothes. It can get pretty dirty in the back. You know, I always come prepared. I think I've got something that will do the trick. All right. As I made my way onto the Chinook, it was pretty sweet hearing the sound of the rotors spinning up while the pilots began their pre-flight checks to get us ready for takeoff. I really wish you guys could feel the power of the rotor wash that this helicopter produces. But I guess for the time being, you'll just have to take my word for it. Flying on military aircraft is always super exciting. But when I found out that I would be sitting in the jump seat for takeoff, I literally couldn't wait. Although I will say climbing into the seat was quite a bit more difficult than I had imagined. Once I was all situated with my headset and seatbelt, the pilot started making the short taxi out to the runway. While yes, technically we could have just launched straight up from where we were, helicopters still have to follow rules. So that meant heading out a little farther before taking off. After a few minutes, we were finally ready to go. And I watched the ground disappear from below as my flight aboard the mighty Chinook was officially underway. Our flight today wasn't scheduled to be super long. However, it was just enough time for me to get a taste of what it's like to fly in a CH-47. We did some instrument work in the local area and then had some fun doing a little low level flying over some rivers and streams. I know I say this a lot, but I'm always blown away by the skills of military pilots. Just watching them safely fly while managing radio calls, checking flight maps, monitoring radar, and also chatting with me to make sure I was having a good time. It was just really cool to be a part of. Oh yeah, and as a quick side note, I kept forgetting you had to hold down the comm button to talk. And so the pilots got a kick out of me aimlessly talking to myself, probably having no idea what I was saying. I decided to move from the jump seat to the cargo area to mix it up a little bit and get a different perspective for our flight back to base. Although I didn't get to see it on this flight, sitting in the back made me wonder how cool it would be to watch airborne troops parachute out of the Chinook. It's crazy to think that 33 soldiers fully loaded down in gear can fit on this thing and perform any number of missions wherever they're called to go in the world. As we made our way back, I really just soaked in how awesome of an experience this was. And I think the pilots were having some fun too, because right before landing, I got one final taste of the Chinook as we made what I like to call tactical turns. And I swear, you could definitely feel some G-forces. Well guys, that was absolutely insane. The Chinook has always been one of my favorite helicopters, and so to be able to spend the day here with the experts who will fix it and fly it was incredible. Thanks to all of you for hanging around for this one. I hope you learned something new. And as always, well, I'll see you guys next time.