Chinooks to begin blowing?

It looks like the first six CH-47s will be acquired fairly soon:

Canada is in the final stages of high-level talks with the United States to acquire six battlefield helicopters for operations in Afghanistan, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

"We’re not quite there yet, but I’m confident we’ll have something very soon," MacKay said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Supplying air transport to get soldiers off the bomb-strewn highways of Kandahar was one of the major conditions set down by the Manley panel for Canada’s continued military involvement in the war-torn country.

The independent panel set a deadline of February 2009 to have the helicopters, which could be used for troop movements and resupply mission, in place.

In his first detailed interview about the scramble to provide helicopters, MacKay said the Defence Department has been pursuing three options — all of them involving variants of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift aircraft.

The first option, and the one MacKay suggested is the most likely to succeed, involves convincing the U.S. Army to let Canada’s air force slip ahead in the production line.

The main drawback to that proposal is the air force would likely not get the specific model of helicopter — a CH-47-F — that it had requested almost two years ago [actually we would be getting "Fs"--the question is whether they would be new-build or upgraded "Ds"--see immediately preceding link - MC].

"I think we’re going to get tails earmarked for the American army, but they may not be the exact specs of the ones we had originally envisioned and that’s where we’re into a bit of a negotiating stage," MacKay said.

He says the other options include:

— acquiring older, refurbished Chinooks under a U.S. army program [these would be CH-47Ds available under the CHAPS program] and leasing those helicopters until an existing Canadian order is filled — in much the same way Leopard 2 A6 tanks were borrowed from the Germans.

— leasing helicopters from another country...

The Conservative government announced in June 2006 that it intended to spend $4.7 billion for 16 heavy-lift battlefield helicopters and 20 years of maintenance support.

The program has been stalled, partly because the air force asked Boeing last year for design changes to make the Canadian Chinooks more versatile and give them longer range [note that Chief of the Air Staff Lt.-Gen. Watt recently said that we 'need the Chinooks and the Air Force is not trying to "gold-plate" them'].

National Defence has yet to sign a contract with the U.S, aircraft giant and delivery of the first helicopter — under the original plan — isn’t expected until 2011.

The delay has been great source of frustration to the army, which quietly implored the Manley panel to make helicopters an urgent priority in its final report, which was released in early January...

Much more on the efforts to get six Chinooks rapidly here. Just over a month ago Prime Minister Harper misspoke about the helicopters being "on order". And some comments on crewing the new aircraft are here.