ILA 2026: Luftwaffe prepares for Chinook entry into service
An artist's impression of the Chinook in German service. The Luftwaffe is now preparing to receive the first of 60 such helicopters, makinng it the largets operator of the type outside of the US Army. (Boeing via Janes/Gareth Jennings)
The Luftwaffe is gearing up for the entry into service of the Boeing CH-47F Chinook Block 2 Standard Range (SR), with the first 60 new heavy-lift helicopters now in build at Boeing's Philadelphia plant in the US.
Speaking under the Chatham House Rule ahead of the ILA Berlin Airshow 2026 running from 10 to 14 June 2026, an official outlined the latest developments in the nearly EUR7 billion (USD8.1 billion) programme to replace the service's 70 ageing and increasingly unreliable VFW-Sikorsky CH-53G-series Stallion helicopters with the latest model Chinook.
“We are replacing the legacy CH-53 fleet in the German Air Force with the CH-47. The CH-53 is a great aircraft, but is really coming to show its age – we have recently celebrated 53 years of the CH-53 in the German armed forces, and availability is now somewhere around 40%,” the official said at the IQPC International Military Helicopter conference in London in February 2026.
“We are now introducing the CH-47 Block 2, the newest aircraft of the Chinook family. It has shallow [standard] tanks, is air-to-air refuellable, and has a strengthened drivetrain which gives us about a 4,000 lb [1,814 kg] higher maximum take-off weight. We are the 21st member of the Chinook family, and the whole programme consists of 60 helicopters – 59 for the German Air Force, and one for the flight test centre in Manching,” he said.
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