Refurbished Chinooks handed over to RMAF
The final CH-47D Chinook helicopter to undergo refurbishment by Columbia Helicopters has been handed over to the Royal Moroccan Air Force (RMAF) at a military base near Rabat, Morocco, in late August, the company announced on 2 October.
This completes Columbia Helicopters’ contract to perform military maintenance on three former US Army Chinook aircraft for delivery to the RMAF under a US government foreign military sales agreement.
The refurbishment work was completed at Columbia’s FAA-licensed Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) facility in Aurora, and the aircraft were shipped to Morocco, where Columbia’s crew reassembled the aircraft and conducted post-maintenance test flights.
Refurbishment work included airframe and component inspection, and repair, overhaul and replacement of parts as required. The aircraft were also repainted in Morocco’s desert camouflage pattern, and with military crests, flags and registration information.
Jim Rankin, president, Columbia Helicopters, said: ‘We are pleased to have successfully completed this project. Our military maintenance crews did an outstanding job bringing these aircraft back to a nearly-new state, and I’m confident the RMAF will be completely satisfied with these aircraft.’
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