On Wednesday Dec. 22, 2021, the very last Boeing CH-47 Chinook type D was taken out of service by the Royal Netherlands Air Force (“Koninklijke Luchtmacht”).
The 298 squadron from Gilze-Rijen Air Base arrived with the very last flying Chinook D type– registration D-667, nickname “Rodney”, with matching callsign “Grizzly47D”– at the GLV5 training area near Oirschot, in the southern part of the Netherlands. GLV stands for “Gebied Laag Vliegen” which translates as “low flying area,” an area where Dutch Air Force helicopters can exercise in flying low-level and perform “brown-out’’ landings.
This last Chinook flight had been announced in advance across various photo and spotter social media sites. As a result, there were some 75 photographers present for an opportunity to capture the type’s last flight on a cold morning.
The existing 11 Dutch CH-47Ds were replaced by 14 new Boeing CH-47F MYII CAAS (Common Avionics Architecture System) aircraft. This brings the total of Chinooks to 20, with the six existing CH-47F aircraft being modernized and brought to the same CH-47F MYII CAAS standard as the rest of the fleet.
This story was prepared and distributed by Joris van Boven and Alex van Noye.
