New Chinook buy to sustain UK heavy lift beyond 2040

A second tranche of Chinook procurement is being planned to sustain the UK’s heavy lift capability beyond 2040, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed, with deliveries expected from the mid-2030s and further activity supporting the fleet through to at least 2060, though the Armed Forces face temporary reductions in both medium and heavy helicopter lift capacity while ageing fleets are replaced.

The detail came in a pair of written answers from Defence Minister Luke Pollard to Liberal Democrat MP James MacCleary, who asked about changes to vertical lift capability referenced in the recent Defence Investment Plan and about plans for future Chinook purchases. Pollard said operational analysis has confirmed an enduring requirement for both medium and heavy vertical lift, which he said perform “complementary roles across a range of military tasks and operating environments”.

Pollard set out the shape of the follow-on Chinook buy in the most detail to date. Chinook Capability Sustainment Programme Tranche 2 will replace legacy aircraft, with current planning assumptions envisaging contractual commitment through SDR30, the next Strategic Defence Review cycle, deliveries commencing in the mid-2030s and Initial Operating Capability in the latter part of that decade. The programme is distinct from Tranche 1, the previously approved procurement of fourteen H-47 Extended Range aircraft, the first of which is expected to be delivered to the UK from 2027.

The number of aircraft to be bought under Tranche 2 has not been settled, however, “The final number of aircraft to be procured, and the associated delivery profile, will be determined through future approvals and force design decisions based on the requirements, threat assessments and the technological changes to have taken place by then,” Pollard said, with the programme currently in its assessment phase.

The oldest Chinook Mk6A aircraft are being retired as they become “increasingly costly and difficult to sustain,” creating what the Minister acknowledged is “a temporary reduction in Heavy Vertical Lift capacity during the transition period before replacement aircraft are delivered and brought into service.”

A similar picture applies to medium lift, where the retirement of the Puma fleet “has resulted in a temporary reduction in Medium Vertical Lift capacity pending the introduction of the New Medium Helicopter capability, which is expected to enter service from 2030-31.” The Puma HC2 left RAF service in 2025 after more than five decades of Puma operations, with the New Medium Helicopter requirement to be met by the Leonardo AW149, to be built at the company’s Yeovil site, leaving a gap of several years in which the RAF fields no dedicated medium support helicopter.

The Department’s overall assessment, Pollard said, is that the reductions in both categories “are a consequence of replacing ageing fleets with more capable and sustainable aircraft” and are “understood, planned for, and addressed” through the New Medium Helicopter programme and the two-tranche Chinook recapitalisation, with the Defence Investment Plan providing for both. Sustainment of the fleet through to at least 2060 would see the Chinook serve a full century after the type’s first flight.