U.S. Army’s Chinook spare part stuck with a single supplier

The Defense Logistics Agency plans to buy a hydraulic cylinder assembly for the U.S. Army’s CH-47 Chinook helicopter only from Boeing because the government does not have the technical data it needs to let anyone else compete, the latest example of the data gap the Pentagon’s right-to-repair push is meant to close. DLA Aviation at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, posted a sources-sought notice for the part on Nov. 5 and gave companies until noon Central on Nov. 9 to respond.

The notice, SPRRA127RA020, covers a single item, part number 114H6801-5, listed as “Cylinder Assembly, A” under national stock number 1650-01-312-2980, in the supply class for aircraft hydraulic, vacuum and de-icing system components. DLA says the data needed to buy the part competitively is not physically available and cannot be obtained economically, and that it cannot write specifications good enough for a competitive solicitation. It is relying on the federal rule that allows a sole-source purchase when only one responsible source exists, and the notice title names Boeing, the Chinook’s original equipment manufacturer, as that source. The notice does not say where on the helicopter the cylinder is used, how many DLA intends to buy or what the contract might be worth.

Other companies can still try to break in, but at their own expense. The notice points them to the U.S. Army’s aviation and missile engineering center at Redstone to seek approval as a qualified source, and says any newcomer would pay its own recurring and nonrecurring engineering costs to qualify and carry the full production burden, including long-lead parts and obsolescence.

Missing technical data is the problem the Pentagon’s right-to-repair push is meant to address. Without drawings, specifications and repair data, the military often cannot qualify a second supplier, make a part in its own depots or check whether the original manufacturer’s price is fair. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put the issue into writing in an April 30, 2025, memo on Army transformation and acquisition reform, directing the U.S. Army to:

“Identify and propose contract modifications for right to repair provisions where intellectual property constraints limit the Army’s ability to conduct maintenance and access the appropriate maintenance tools, software and technical data while preserving the intellectual capital of American industry,” Hegseth wrote.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told the House Armed Services Committee on June 4, 2025, that the order had already changed how the service signs contracts, National Defense magazine reported.

“On a go-forward basis, we have been directed to not sign any contracts that don’t give us a right to repair,” Driscoll said.

Driscoll returned to the issue at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on May 12, 2026, where he backed legislation to write the policy into law. Asked about contractor claims that the U.S. Army could not be trusted with sensitive technical data, he called the argument “one of the more preposterous things I have heard.”

Congress has not made those rights mandatory. The House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act both carried right-to-repair language, but it was stripped from the compromise bill in December 2025 after industry pushback. The final law instead directs the Pentagon to catalog the technical data it already holds and to request options from contractors when data is missing, Fox News reported. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., who wrote the Senate provision, responded in a joint statement.

“We support the Pentagon using the full extent of its existing authorities to insist on right to repair protections when it purchases equipment from contractors, and we will keep fighting for a common-sense, bipartisan law to address this unnecessary problem,” Warren and Sheehy said.

Boeing has faced scrutiny before over what it charged the military for spare parts, including for the Chinook. A May 2011 Pentagon inspector general audit, report D-2011-061, examined Boeing’s spare parts support for Corpus Christi Army Depot in Texas and found the company had charged the U.S. Army about $13 million more than fair and reasonable prices for 18 Apache and Chinook parts. The full report, published by the Project on Government Oversight, showed Boeing charged $71.01 apiece for a straight pin that DLA stocked for 4 cents and $1,678.61 for a plastic roller assembly available from Pentagon supplies for $7.71. The inspector general recommended a $6 million refund, which the U.S. Army rejected.

The issue surfaced again in October 2024, when the inspector general’s audit of C-17 spare parts pricing, report DODIG-2025-009, found the U.S. Air Force had overpaid Boeing $992,856 for 12 of 46 C-17 Globemaster III spare parts it sampled. The audit cited a 7,943% markup on lavatory soap dispensers, costing $149,072. The inspector general’s office also said it could not determine whether prices were fair for more than half the parts, worth over $22 million, because the U.S. Air Force did not keep historical cost data and the Defense Contract Management Agency could not obtain supplier quotes or identify commercially similar parts.

“The Air Force needs to establish and implement more effective internal controls to help prevent overpaying for spare parts for the remainder of this contract, which continues through 2031,” said Inspector General Robert Storch.

Nothing in the new notice indicates what DLA expects to pay for the Chinook cylinder or whether its price is disputed. The notice does show the starting position the U.S. Army is trying to change: without the technical data, the government has no second supplier to turn to and no independent basis to judge the original manufacturer’s price.

The Chinook is the U.S. Army’s main heavy-lift helicopter, and the service is recapitalizing older aircraft into the CH-47F Block II configuration, which will keep the fleet flying, and in need of spare parts, for decades.