After over a year's transition training, the new CH-47SD transport helicopters that the army bought from the US are to enter service on Friday at the army's aviation command in Tainan, army general headquarters said yesterday.
The activation ceremony for the helicopters is to be a downscaled version of the originally planned elaborate ceremony that was initially scheduled to be held last month. The show was cancelled due to the SARS epidemic.
In the activation ceremony to be held on Friday, the army is to present a static display of the nine CH-47SDs that are all attached to the Tainan-based aviation command. The army started taking delivery of the CH-47SDs last May. The deliveries were not completed until early this year.
The CH-47SD is meant to replace its civilian version, the B-234 helicopter, which was not very useful to the army because of weak lifting power. The three B-234s that the army used to operate are now used by the fire department's airborne branch.
As compared with the B-234, the CH-47SD has much greater power and better meets the demand of the army because of equipment built to military specifications.
Because of the CH-47SD's superior capabilities, lawmakers had asked the army to cede some of them to the fire department.
The request was made several months ago when a deadly train accident occurred near the well-known tourist destination, Alishan, in Chiayi County.
A UH-1H utility helicopter the army had transferred to the fire department crashed while it was trying to rescue people from the disaster site.
Overloading was blamed as the cause of the crash. But the age of the helicopter and the length it had been in service was also identified as a problem.
At the time, there were calls from both lawmaking and administrative branches of the government to buy new helicopters for the fire department's airborne branch.
The CH-47SDs that the army had just bought from the US thus became the center of attention, with some lawmakers arguing that some of these helicopters should be given to the fire department.
The army, unhappy with the suggestion, insisted that the nine CH-47SDs hardly met its combat demands and that it did not have any extra helicopters to transfer.
According to the army's plans, the nine CH-47SDs are to be used mainly to transport special operations troops to any place in the country in the shortest possible time.
These helicopters are to become the backbone of the army's rapid reaction forces, a goal that the army thinks should not be confused with civilian rescue operations.
Each of the CH-47SDs can carry a platoon of troops. The total number of troops that the nine CH-47SDs can transport at the same time constitute only one battalion.
The army might need more of these helicopters to rapidly deploy troops in larger numbers, defense officials said.
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