The US Army has awarded RTX’s Collins Aerospace a contract worth up to $472 million to provide engineering services supporting the modernization and sustainment of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter fleet.
The engineering services will focus on avionics upgrades designed to help the Army integrate new capabilities more efficiently, address aging systems, and strengthen the aircraft’s avionics architecture, all aimed at keeping the fleet mission-ready as operational demands evolve.
#NEWS: The @USArmy awarded Collins Aerospace a contract to support modernization and sustainment of the CH-47 Chinook fleet. Collins will provide avionics engineering services to address obsolescence and support new capabilities. More: https://t.co/YXLOc18vS3 pic.twitter.com/16Jwn8r6r1
— RTX (@RTX_News) August 11, 2026
Advanced cockpit systems central to Chinook modernization effort
Jenny Miller, Vice President and General Manager of Vision and Sensing Systems at Collins Aerospace, said the company’s avionics systems bring together communication, navigation, and mission subsystems into a flexible, interoperable cockpit built for current operational needs.
She described the company’s long-standing avionics partnership with the Army as key to ensuring the Chinook fleet continues to evolve alongside the needs of service members and future mission requirements.
Contract aims to standardize avionics across Army’s aircraft fleet
Beyond the Chinook program itself, the contract is intended to support greater consistency across the Army’s broader aviation fleet.
By advancing open, reusable avionics architectures that can be applied across multiple aircraft types, the approach is meant to simplify how new technology gets integrated, reduce the complexity of that integration, and improve cost and schedule efficiency as the Army continues modernizing its aircraft.
Work under the contract will take place in Huntsville, Alabama, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.