Canadians to fly Chinooks in Afghanistan
100 pilots and flight engineers being trained in Alabama, U.S.
Matthew Fisher, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, August 06, 2008

FORT RUCKER, Ala. - The first Canadians slated to fly helicopter combat missions in Afghanistan have been secretly training for duty since last March at a U.S. army base in Alabama.

"We are going to save a lot of lives and directly affect combat operations," said Lt.-Col. Roger Gagnon of Hawkesbury, Ont., who leads a group of pilots and flight engineers training here who spoke for the first time this week about their pending deployment to Kandahar where they are to fly six CH-47D Chinooks leased from the U.S. military.

Sending Chinooks to Afghanistan meets one of the major demands made by the John Manley advisory panel on the mission and subsequently approved by Parliament. An official announcement on the Chinook deployment, which is to cost $375 million, and of the dispatch of new unmanned reconnaissance drones to Afghanistan which was also demanded by the panel, is to be made at CFB St. Hubert near Montreal Thursday by Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

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I couldn't find a article that covers the whole story. This one mentions that the Chinooks are leased but they were bought from the US Army. The 6 Chinooks wont be in Afghanistan until February of 2009, to make up for that 6 Mi-8 Russian helicopters were also leased from Skylink, based out of Toronto, a company that already leases Antonovs etc to DND. The Hip's will be flying with their own crews and the agreement included servicing and maintenance. As far as the Chinooks go i believe they'll fly under the maple leaf. The reason all of this happened is because the CH-47F wont be delivered to Canada until 2013. There's also talks of a 3 year lease of some unspecified UAV, but i heard it's from a company based out of BC and based on the IAI Heron.

First Canadian CH-147D to receive it's markings. Christmas day, 2008