New RAF H-47ER Chinooks Revealed Sporting 160th SOAR Style Black Paint Scheme

August 3, 2026

Images released by Boeing of the Royal Air Force’s next batch of Chinook helicopters confirm long-standing reports of their similarity to the U.S. MH-47G variant.

The new-build Chinooks will supplant some of the oldest examples currently in RAF service, some of which date back to the early 1980s.

The H-47ER specification Chinooks are the first Block II Chinooks to be sold overseas and are the RAF’s second foray into a ‘fat tank’ special operations variant after the Chinook HC3 (now upgraded to HC5). When delivered in the early 2000s, intended as a simplified version of the MH-47E, the type was plagued by certification problems relating to the installed avionics.

Staff Writer

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