# Egypt Receives First Batch of Boeing CH-47F Chinook Helicopters

- Link: https://www.military.africa/2026/09/egypt-receives-first-batch-of-boeing-ch-47f-chinook-helicopters/
- Published: 2026-09-20T20:04:27+01:00
- Author: Israel Chukwuma

The Egyptian Air Force took delivery of its first five Boeing CH-47F Chinook heavy-
lift helicopters this month, with the handover marked at the El Alamein International
Airshow on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The milestone moves toward a roughly $426
million foreign military sale that Boeing was awarded in January 2023 to supply 
Cairo with [12 new-generation transport helicopters](https://www.military.africa/2023/01/egypt-buys-12-chinook-heavylift-helicopters-from-boeing/).
The five helicopters are the first of the 12-aircraft batch to reach Egypt. The 
remaining 7 airframes are currently in the delivery queue under the contract schedule
running through 2026.

The show ran from 8 to 10 September at El Alamein International Airport, organized
by Egypt’s Ministry of Defence, the Egyptian Air Force, the Ministry of Civil Aviation,
the Egyptian Space Agency and EgyptAir. Boeing took part as a Silver Sponsor and
used the event to display the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the KC-46A Pegasus
tanker alongside the Chinook. Brendan Nelson, Boeing senior vice president and president
of Boeing Global, called Egypt “one of the region’s most important defense and security
partners”.

![Egypt Receives First Batch of Boeing CH-47F Chinook Helicopters](https://pbs.twimg.
com/media/HSbgWF_W0AAud5Z?format=jpg&name=large)

Egypt already fields more than 300 helicopters of various types, drawing on Russian,
American, French, and Chinese suppliers, and Global Firepower ranks it as Africa’s
most powerful military by its index.

The new F-model aircraft will replace the Egyptian Air Force’s CH-47D fleet, which
Boeing now puts at 19 helicopters. Egypt’s Chinook history goes back further than
that number suggests: the country received 15 CH-47C helicopters in the early 1980s,
added four CH-47Ds in 1998 and 1999, and later upgraded most of the C-model airframes
to D standard around 2002. A 2009 request to buy six more CH-47Ds appears not to
have gone anywhere.

Cairo’s current order traces back to a State Department approval from May 2022 that
cleared a possible sale of up to [23 Chinooks ](https://www.military.africa/2022/05/egypt-seeks-23-chinook-heavy-lift-helos/)
worth as much as $2.6 billion. Egypt scaled that down, contracting in January 2023
for 12 aircraft at roughly $426 million, a Foreign Military Sale case awarded to
Boeing through the U.S. Army on Egypt’s behalf. In 2024, Egypt reportedly [renovated Anchas Air Base](https://www.military.africa/2024/08/egypt-to-renovate-anchas-air-base-for-ch-47f-chinooks/)
to accommodate the new helicopters.

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The F-model brings real changes rather than a simple repaint. It replaces the D-
model’s analog dials with the Common Avionics Architecture System, a digital cockpit
shared with the Apache that consolidates flight, navigation, and mission data onto
common displays. A Boeing spokesperson described the aircraft as having “a much 
stronger airframe” than its predecessor, along with a strengthened rotor hub and
crashworthy seats.

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![Egypt Receives First Batch of Boeing CH-47F Chinook Helicopters](https://pbs.twimg.
com/media/HSbgWGSXAAAa1Ly?format=jpg&name=large)

The Chinook delivery lands inside a fast-growing regional market.

The helicopter is built around counter-rotating front and rear rotors, a tandem 
layout that removes the need for a tail rotor and sends all engine power into lift
and forward thrust. Twin turboshaft engines give it a cruise speed near 170 knots
and a maximum ferry range of roughly 400 nautical miles, extendable with in-flight
refueling. It can carry up to 24,000 pounds internally or 26,000 pounds on an external
sling load, enough for a light vehicle or a towed howitzer on the reinforced cabin
floor. In a troop-transport role, it can carry up to 55 soldiers, though 33 combat-
loaded troops are closer to a standard mission fit; configured for medical evacuation,
it can hold two dozen litters plus attendants.

The CH-47F family more broadly can be fitted with missile warning sensors, radar
warning receivers and chaff and flare dispensers, and Egypt’s earlier Chinooks have
flown alongside its wider Boeing inventory of 46 AH-64D Apaches, a relationship 
with Cairo that Boeing traces back to the Egyptian Air Force’s purchase of the F-
4 Phantom II in 1979.

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The Chinook delivery lands inside a fast-growing regional market. Egypt already 
fields more than 300 helicopters of various types, drawing on Russian, American,
French, and Chinese suppliers, and Global Firepower ranks it as Africa’s most powerful
military by its index. A 2023 Defence IQ report projected African military helicopter
spending at [$2.2 billion](https://www.military.africa/2024/02/african-market-for-military-helicopters-reaches-us2-2-billion/)
between 2023 and 2028, making the continent one of the faster-growing regions for
rotary-wing procurement even as individual programs, like Egypt’s, remain modest
in scale next to Gulf or European orders.

For the Egyptian Air Force, the near-term effect is a gradual, aircraft-by-aircraft
replacement of a CH-47D fleet that includes airframes dating to the 1980s. The digital
cockpit and structural changes in the F-model should ease pilot workload and cut
the maintenance burden that comes with keeping decades-old analog helicopters flying,
without requiring an entirely new logistics chain since the type is already familiar
to Egyptian crews and ground staff.

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