Photo By Scott Sturkol | A CH-47 Chinook helicopter operated by an aircrew with the 5th Battalion, 159th (5th,...... read more read more
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Aircrews and maintenance personnel with the 5th Battalion, 159th General Support Aviation (5th, 159th) Battalion of Fort Eustis, Va., brought four CH-47 Chinook helicopters to support training in the 86th Training Division’s Combat Support Training Exercise (CSTX) 86-24-02, and for two weeks those helicopters were busy.
CSTX took place from Aug. 3-17 at Fort McCoy. For the 5th, 159th Soldiers who were supporting the training, they set up shop at the Sparta-Fort McCoy Airport to conduct their operations, said Fort McCoy Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security (DPTMS) officials.
Throughout the exercise, the four Chinook helicopters of the 5th, 159th could be seen soaring over the installation’s training spaces. The helicopters and their crews ferried troops all over Fort McCoy’s 60,000-acre space, and more. They even supported the 652nd Multi-Role Bridge Company with some of their training with building bridges at Big Sandy Lake on South Post.
Crews also carried troops and cargo between forward bases where thousands of troops were embedded in austere conditions for the exercise. The thousands of troops were set up for training at several installation training areas to include tactical training bases, Logistical Staging Area-Freedom, Young Air Assault Strip, and even training spaces within the woods throughout North Post and South Post, DPTMS officials said.
So what makes the Chinook a special support helicopter for Army aviation? According to the Army fact sheet for the CH-47available at https://www.army.mil/article/239332/chinook_cargo_helicopter_ch_47f, , the Chinook is the Army’s only heavy-lift cargo helicopter supporting combat and other critical operations.
“The CH-47F has a suite of improved features such as an upgraded digital cockpit featuring the Common Avionics Architecture System, a new monolithic airframe with vibration reduction, and the Digital Automatic Flight Control System, which provides coupled controllability for operations in adverse environments (reduced visibility, brown out, high winds),” the fact sheet states. “The CH-47F’s common cockpit enables multiservice digital compatibility and interoperability for improved situational awareness, mission performance and survivability, as well as future growth potential.”
Chinook aircraft are not new to Fort McCoy. They’ve been supporting training at Fort McCoy for decades. One of the more common scenes of training support on post has been supporting slingload training for 89B military occupational specialty training at the installation. That training currently is completed through the Fort McCoy Regional Training Site-Maintenance.
But there was a reason the Chinooks were at Fort McCoy for CSTX. Them and approximate eight UH-60 Black Hawks also from the 5th, 159th. It’s capabilities. The fact sheet further outlines those capabilities.
“The CH-47F tactically transports forces and associated equipment and provides routine aerial sustainment of maneuver forces,” the fact sheet states. “Secondary missions the Chinook executes to support Soldiers and commanders include: medical evacuation, search and rescue, parachute drops, disaster relief, and aircraft recovery. The CH-47F Block II program provides additional capability to the field with greater reach, increased payload capacity and an increase in maximum gross weight to 54,000 pounds.”
The helicopters and crews also supported the 2024 Global Medic Exercise at Fort McCoy which took place alongside CSTX.
Learn more about the battalion by visition their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064588582777.
Fort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.26.2024 18:21 |
| Story ID: | 479460 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 1,022 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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