Original vintage 1960s United States Savings Bonds Viet Nam conflict advertisement, featuring the U.S. Army's CH-47 helicopter - "The Guys in the Da Nang Patrol."
Dimensions: 9.5 inches wide by 12.5 inches high.
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem-rotor helicopter originally developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and now manufactured by Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The Chinook is a heavy-lift helicopter, and among the heaviest lifting Western helicopters. Its name – Chinook – is from the Native American Chinook people of Oregon and Washington state.
The Chinook was originally designed by Vertol, which had begun work in 1957 on a new tandem-rotor helicopter, designated as the Vertol Model 107 or V-107. Around the same time, the United States Department of the Army announced its intention to replace the piston-engine–powered Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave with a new, gas turbine–powered helicopter.
During June 1958, the U.S. Army ordered a small number of V-107s from Vertol under the YHC-1A designation; following testing, some Army officials considered it to be too heavy for the assault missions and too light for transport purposes. The Chinook possesses several means of loading various cargoes, including multiple doors across the fuselage, a wide loading ramp located at the rear of the fuselage and a total of three external ventral cargo hooks to carry underslung loads.
Capable of a top speed of 170 knots (200 mph; 310 km/h), upon its introduction to service in 1962 the helicopter was considerably faster than contemporary 1960s utility helicopters and attack helicopters and is still one of the fastest helicopters in the US inventory. Improved and more powerful versions of the Chinook have also been developed since its introduction; one of the most substantial variants to be produced was the CH-47D, which first entered service in 1982.
The Army finally settled on the Chinook as its standard medium-transport helicopter, and by February 1966, 161 aircraft had been delivered to the Army. The 1st Cavalry Division had brought its organic Chinook battalion (three Chinook companies) when it arrived to Viet Nam in 1965 and a separate aviation medium helicopter company, the 147th, had arrived in November 1965. This latter company was initially placed in direct support of the 1st Infantry Division. CH-47 crews quickly learned to mount an M60 machine gun in each of the forward doors, and sometimes also installed an M2 machine gun to fire from the rear cargo door.
The most spectacular mission in Vietnam for the Chinook was the placing of artillery batteries in perilous mountain positions inaccessible by any other means, and then keeping them resupplied with large quantities of ammunition. The 1st Cavalry Division found that its CH-47s were limited to a 7,000-pound (3,200 kg) payload when operating in the mountains but could carry an additional 1,000 pounds (450 kg) when operating near the coast.
At the war's peak the US Army had 21 Chinook companies in Vietnam. Pilots discovered the CH-47A's transmission system could not handle the two gas turbines running at full power, and high humidity and heat reduced the maximum lift by more than 20% in the low lands and 30% in mountain areas. More powerful, improved transmission and strengthened fuselages arrived in 1968 with the CH-47B, followed a few months later by the CH-47C. The CH-47s in Vietnam were generally armed with a single 0.308 in (7.62 mm) M60 machine gun on a pintle mount on either side of the aircraft for self-defense, with stops fitted to keep the gunners from firing into the rotor blades. Of nearly 750 Chinook helicopters in the U.S. and South Vietnam fleets, about 200 were lost in combat or wartime operational accidents
The Chinook remains one of the few aircraft to be developed during the early 1960s – along with the fixed-wing Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft – that has remained in both production and frontline service for over 60 years.
The military version of the helicopter has been exported to nations across the world; the U.S. Army and the United Kingdom’s Royal Air have been its two largest users. The civilian version of the Chinook, the Boeing Vertol 234, has been used by civil operators not only for passenger and cargo transport, but also aerial firefighting and to support logging, construction, and oil extraction industries.
United States Savings Bonds are debt securities issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to help pay for the U.S. government's borrowing needs. They are considered one of the safest investments because they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. The savings bonds are nonmarketable treasury securities issued to the public, which means they cannot be publicly traded or otherwise transferred. They are redeemable only by the original purchaser, a recipient (for bonds purchased as gifts) or a beneficiary in case of the original holder's death.