scathing report on the MOD's handling of the affair, stating that the whole programme was likely to cost £500 million by the time the helicopters enter service. On 6 July 2009, the first of the eight modified Chinook HC3s made its first test flight at MOD Boscombe Down as part of the flight testing and evaluation phase of the HC3 "reversion" programme. Chinook HC4, HC5, HC6 and HC6A A programme to upgrade forty-six Chinook HC2/2A and HC3 helicopters was initiated in December 2008. Known as Project Julius, it included new digital flight deck avionics based on the Thales TopDeck avionics suite, comprising new multifunction displays, a digital moving map display and an electronic flight bag, installation of a nose-mounted forward-looking infrared (FLIR) detector, and upgrading the engines to the more powerful T55-714 standard. Upgraded HC2/2A and HC3 aircraft were redesignated HC4 and HC5 respectively. Deliveries were expected to commence in 2011. The first conversion, a Chinook HC4, first flew on 9 December 2010. Initial operating capability status was reached in June 2012 with seven aircraft delivered. The Chinook HC6 designation has been assigned to the twenty-four (later reduced to fourteen) CH-47F-derived Chinooks ordered in 2009. In December 2015, the fourteenth and final HC6 was delivered to the RAF. In July 2017, it was announced that the thirty-eight Chinook HC4s were to be upgraded to a HC6A standard including the replacement of the analogue flight control systems with the Boeing Digital Automatic Flight Control System (DAFCS). By February 2022, no HC4 variants remained, with the fleet comprising HC5, HC6 and HC6A variants. Operational history Overview RAF Chinooks have been widely deployed in support of British military engagements, serving their first wartime role in Operation Corporate, the Falklands War, in 1982. Chinooks were used in Operation Granby in the 1991 Gulf War, attached to large peace-keeping commitments in the Balkans, took part in Operation Herrick and Operation Toral as part of the War in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, and in Operation Telic in the 2003 Iraq War. They provide routine supply and support missions to the British military, notably in Operation Banner in Northern Ireland. The helicopter has also been of use in military humanitarian missions and the extraction of civilians from war-zones, such as the evacuation of Sierra Leone in 2000, and the evacuation from Lebanon in 2006. One Chinook in particular, known by its original squadron code Bravo November,