REDSTONE ARSENAL, ALABAMA — Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal awarded Rockwell Collins Inc. a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth up to $472.4 million for command, control and communications integration and engineering support across the CH-47 Chinook fleet. The federal award names Rockwell Collins as the legal contractor. RTX announced the deal through Collins Aerospace, its operating business. Under contract W58RGZ-26-D-0033, the Army can order work tied to software, avionics and avionics architecture for every Chinook variant.

Signed April 30, 2026, the contract appeared in the Defense Department’s award list that day. The department gives an exact cumulative face value of $472,412,478. USAspending records $472 million, the same ceiling rounded to the nearest million. RTX announced the award Aug. 11, 103 days later. Its release gives no reason for the gap.

Structurally, the award is a single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. The Defense Department calls it cost-plus-fixed-fee, and USAspending shows zero dollars obligated on the base contract because the money sits on individual orders. USAspending identifies PEO Aviation as the funding office. Each order sets its work location and funding.

So far, the federal record shows one order. W58RGZ-26-F-0185 was signed May 4 as a cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order supporting CH-47F Block II. It obligated $1,144,274 for work in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, running through May 3, 2029.

Federal records describe the competition differently. USAspending codes the contract as “only one source” under FAR 6.302-1, and SAM.gov says the Army approved a justification for other than full and open competition. The Defense Department says bids were solicited through the internet and one was received. It leaves the Collins entry without the sole-source label applied to other awards in the same day’s list. The records agree that one offer arrived. They diverge on the route that produced it.

Collins’ incumbency remains relevant context. An Army history says the first CH-47F with a Rockwell Collins Common Avionics Architecture System cockpit was certified as combat-ready in 2007. That establishes a long installed position on the aircraft. The available notice stops short of naming incumbency as the formal reason for limiting competition.

The Army labels the current effort Phase V, or CTES V. Federal award records leave the acronym undefined. Collins says its engineering services will help integrate new capabilities more efficiently and address obsolescence. The company also says the work will strengthen the aircraft’s avionics architecture. RTX frames that architecture as open and reusable across multiple Army aircraft. That broader claim comes from the company. The contract scope remains confined to Chinook variants.

Program context appears in the Army’s fiscal 2027 aircraft procurement book. The Digital Cockpit Support & Sustainment line covers aircraft obsolescence and crypto modernization. It also includes assured positioning, navigation and timing, enhanced and integrated aircraft survivability equipment and cybersecurity, among other work. A separate CH-47 modification line funds updates to CAAS and the Digital Advanced Flight Control System. The line also names Modular Open Systems Approach interfaces. Testing and integration appear there too. Those entries show the larger fleet workload around this award. The book stops short of assigning each effort to W58RGZ-26-D-0033.

Work locations are assigned by order, with RTX expecting activity in Huntsville, Alabama, and Cedar Rapids and the first order naming Cedar Rapids. The Army’s April 29, 2031 completion estimate is the date to hold, although USAspending lists Feb. 25, 2031, and the SAM.gov notice described five years plus a six-month extension option.

The money is clearer. For now, $1.1 million is on the books against a vehicle that can reach $472.4 million. From here, every dollar added to the Chinook effort has to arrive on an order.