Turkey to buy its first heavy-lift army copters

Turkey has signed a government-to-government deal with the United States to buy six Boeing-made CH-47 heavy-lift military transport helicopters, the first such weapons in its inventory, a senior procurement official said over the weekend. The deal is worth up to $400 million, the official said. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, or DSCA, the Pentagon’s body coordinating weapons sales, notified the U.S. Congress of a potential sale of a total of 14 CH-47F heavy-lift helicopters for $1.2 billion in December 2009. Congress gave permission for the sale later that month. Because of financial constraints, however, the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry, or SSM, Turkey’s procurement agency, later wanted to buy only six CH-47Fs, five for the Army and one for the Special Forces Command, leaving a decision on the remaining eight platforms for the future. Contract negotiations between the SSM, the U.S. government and Boeing were launched last year. “The contract was signed in late July,” the procurement official told the Hürriyet Daily News. “After the helicopters begin to arrive, we plan to make some modifications to them according to our needs.” The six CH-47F Chinooks will be the first heavy-lift helicopters in the Turkish Army’s inventory. Their deliveries are expected to begin in 2013 and end in 2014. “These helicopters have incredible capabilities. Three or four of them can transport a company-sized unit and its equipment over long distances in only a few hours,” the procurement official said. The maximum speed of the CH-47F is around 312 kilometers per hour.