U.S. Army chooses Honeywell to help keep Chinook helicopters mission-ready, reliable

PHOENIX, 7 Oct. 2015. U.S. Army officials needed an industry partner to keep the organization’s fleet of Chinook CH-47 and MH-47 helicopters running and mission-ready. They found that partner in Honeywell Aerospace (NYSE:HON) in Phoenix.

Honeywell’s technical staff will provide additional engine repair and overhaul support for its T-55 turboshaft engine on the U.S. Army’s Chinook helicopters -- American twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift aircraft. The repair and overhaul work, which is performed in South Carolina, assures Chinook operators that Honeywell’s turboshaft engines will perform with the power, reliability, and payload capability needed for a wide breadth of missions in the Army’s latest cargo helicopters, officials say.

“The Chinook caters to a wide array of missions for the U.S. Army and needs an engine that supports this. With more than 12 million hours of operation on both the CH-47 and MH-47 fleets, our T-55 turboshaft engine has proved it’s prepared to support Chinook operators wherever the mission takes them,” says Carey Smith, president, Defense and Space, Honeywell Aerospace. “Our commitment extends well beyond the initial delivery of our engines. Our team at the Honeywell Greer facility is equipped with the repair and overhaul expertise to limit the downtime of the Chinook and maintain the extraordinary level of performance that the U.S. Army has come to expect from the T-55.”

As tactical challenges grow and the role of the Chinook expands, Honeywell’s T-55 turboshaft engine has helped advance the helicopter’s performance, according to company officials. Equipped with two of Honeywell’s T-55-714 engines, modern variants of the U.S. Army’s Chinook have three times more lift than the original helicopters fielded in the 1960s, are capable of lifting five tons, and have the available power (4,800 shaft horsepower) needed to maintain flight with only one engine. For Chinook pilots, this level of field reliability, power, and performance has made the T-55 a valuable tool for the breadth of diverse Army cargo missions, from high and hot operating environments in Afghanistan to the polar regions of Alaska, officials add.

Honeywell Aerospace products and services are found on every commercial, defense, and space aircraft. The Aerospace business unit develops solutions for more fuel-efficient automobiles and airplanes, more direct and on-time flights, safer flying and runway traffic, along with aircraft engines, cockpit and cabin electronics, wireless connectivity services, logistics, and more.