The British Defense Ministry's muddled handling of a Chinook procurement is coming under fire, at the same time as the U.K. and Boeing are close to finalizing a cockpit standardization program across the country's entire Chinook heavy-lift helicopter fleet. The National Audit Office (NAO), Parliament's financial watchdog, is critical of the ministry's "protracted" effort to rectify problems with the Chinook Mk. 3, which has meant that the aircraft will be introduced 11 years later than anticipated. When ordered in 1995, the aircraft were expected to enter service in 1998, which later was rescheduled to 2002. Although the eight Mk. 3 helicopters were delivered in 2001, a military aircraft release could not be provided mainly because the ministry was unable to access cockpit avionics source code. Source-code access had not been specified as part of the original contract. The NAO's "Chinook Mk. 3 Helicopters" report, released June 4, comments that the "shortage of helicopters to support operations has been exacerbated" by the Defense Ministry's failure to move more quickly to determine and implement a resolution to the problem.
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