The Egyptian Air Force has received its first Boeing CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, beginning the replacement of its CH-47D fleet with the latest variant of the aircraft.
The US Embassy in Cairo announced on 17 September 2026 that the helicopter had been formally handed over at the El Alamein Airshow. The embassy congratulated Boeing, the US Army and Egypt’s Ministry of Defense, and framed the delivery as an example of the growing commercial and defense partnership between Washington and Cairo. The show ran from 8 to 10 September at El Alamein International Airport on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The delivery falls under a Foreign Military Sales contract worth about $426 million, awarded to Boeing by the US Army in January 2023 for 12 CH-47F helicopters. It followed a May 2022 US approval of a larger potential sale, which the Defense Security Cooperation Agency valued at about $2.6 billion. FlightGlobal reported that Egypt has taken delivery of the first five of the 12 aircraft.
The CH-47F brings a digital cockpit and a common avionics architecture (CAAS) that eases future upgrades, along with improved cargo-handling systems and maintainability compared with Egypt’s CH-47Ds. The wider CH-47F family can carry missile warning sensors, radar warning receivers and countermeasure dispensers, but the exact configuration of Egypt’s aircraft has not been publicly detailed.
Egypt’s existing Chinooks, according to Janes, are operated by 18 Squadron of the Kom Awshim Tactical Helicopter Regiment, about 50 km south of Cairo. The country’s American-built inventory also includes 46 AH-64D Apaches. Boeing displayed the Chinook, the Apache and the KC-46A Pegasus tanker at El Alamein.
The embassy did not disclose a delivery schedule for the remaining aircraft or details of the helicopter’s operational role.
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