Egypt Receives Its First CH-47F Chinook Heavy-Lift Helicopters
The Egyptian Air Force has taken delivery of the first of 12 CH-47F Chinooks ordered under a roughly $426 million Foreign Military Sale, making Egypt the first North African operator of the F model.
Handover at El Alamein
The first CH-47F was formally handed over to the Egyptian Air Force at the El Alamein International Airshow (EIAS 2026) on 8 September 2026. According to Boeing, the first aircraft arrived in May and the second in June; four more are in assembly at the port of Alexandria, with the remaining six expected before the end of the year.
The order stems from a $426 million Foreign Military Sales contract Boeing announced in January 2023. First delivery some 45 months later is unremarkable by the standards of heavy-lift helicopter production.
From D to F
Egypt has operated 18 CH-47D Chinooks acquired in 1981. Boeing says the D fleet will remain in service “for the foreseeable future”, which makes this a fleet expansion rather than a replacement.
The F model differs from the D in ways that matter operationally:
- A much stronger airframe, with machined monolithic sections that reduce vibration and fatigue issues
- Lycoming T55-GE-714 engines, giving better hot-and-high margins
- A reinforced rotor hub
- Crashworthy seating
- Digital avionics replacing the older analogue instrument panel
The cumulative effect is more useful load on the same mission profile and fewer maintenance hours per flight hour. The glass cockpit also improves safety margins in night and degraded visual environments.
What Egypt uses them for
Boeing states the EAF employs its Chinooks for search and rescue, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and declined to discuss armed configurations.
The operational logic is geographic. Egypt’s security operations in Sinai require moving personnel and supplies across terrain where road movement is limited and exposed. Border security along the Western Desert and the Libyan frontier is similarly dependent on air logistics. A Chinook-class platform can move a company of troops or a light armoured vehicle in a single lift — a capability with no ground equivalent in that environment.
El Alamein as a procurement shop window
Staging the handover at the airshow was not incidental. Egypt has been building El Alamein, launched in 2024, into a regional procurement showcase and times platform deliveries to the exhibition calendar. The 2026 edition put American, Russian, Chinese, French and Turkish systems on the same ramp.
That line-up is a fair visual summary of Egypt’s long-running multi-source procurement policy: F-16s and Chinooks from the United States, Rafales and a FREMM frigate from France, MiG-29Ms and Ka-52s from Russia, Type 209 submarines from Germany. The diversity limits supplier leverage over Cairo and drives logistics and training costs sharply upward.
The heavy-lift market
The CH-47F’s only genuine competitor today is the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion, and the two answer different requirements. The tandem-rotor Chinook offers internal volume and load distribution advantages; the CH-53K offers greater external lift and marinisation. The unit cost gap is substantial, with the CH-53K well above the Chinook.
Egypt’s choice follows directly from what it already has: existing CH-47D infrastructure, trained crews and an established spares chain. Moving to the next model in the same family carries a fraction of the transition cost of adopting a new type.
Regional picture
Other regional Chinook operators include Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, while Saudi Arabia flies both D and F variants. Türkiye is also a CH-47F user: aircraft procured under a 2011 Foreign Military Sales contract entered service from 2015 with the Turkish Land Forces and Gendarmerie General Command, and are used chiefly for troop movement in mountainous terrain, firefighting and search and rescue.
Sources
- Boeing — CH-47F Egypt delivery statements, EIAS 2026
- EDR Magazine, “EIAS 2026: First CH-47F Chinook for Egypt on show”, September 2026
- FlightGlobal, “Boeing delivers first F-model Chinooks for Egyptian air force”, September 2026
- US Department of Defense / DSCA — Egypt CH-47F Foreign Military Sale announcement, January 2023
