Please refrain from quoting the whole post above in your post - mod
It's way above my pay grade to know whether seven is enough, although I doubt we could ever crew or field ~12 Chinooks at a time! The Chinook has grown into a fairly specialist 'hot & high' heavylift and Special Forces support role in Afghanistan, and with the arrival of 40+ MRH 90s in the near future, they'll pick up alot of the the medium lift work previously done by Chinooks but which was beyond the capabilities of the Huey and Black Hawk.
Yes, the Ds have been flogged, but they have all recently received new engines and two of them are only a decade old, and there is now a pretty good rest and reconstitute cycle in place which seems to be spreading the load much better betwen airframes.
Whether we need more than two Chooks in Afghanistan at once is also debatable - my gut feeling is our RTF and Special Forces may be better served with a few Tigers or Black Hawks instead. There is also a fourth Herc headed over there to support the latest troop increase as well.
Cheers
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