EXTREME CH47 Chinook Pilot Landing

The CH-47 Chinook helicopter has been around for nearly 50 years, but 50 years later it is still an amazing aircraft.

Here are a few of the things that make it amazing: Twin 60 foot rotors give the helicopter amazing lift — it can haul up to 28,000 pounds of cargo either inside or attached to exterior hooks. It can carry up to 33 seated passengers, 37 people total with crew. Given it’s cargo rating, you could cram on a lot more people. It has two gas turbine engines producing nearly 4,000 horsepower to drive the rotors. Just over 1,000 gallons of fuel on board give it a range of over 400 miles. Lack of a tail rotor makes it more stable in windy conditions and also allows for a rear cargo ramp.

The rear cargo ramp makes certain things possible that would be impossible for just about any other aircraft. For example, the CH-47 can hover over water and a boat can drive right in for water extraction, like this: