One base in North Africa, second base in southern Soviet and voila, you cover everything apart from the Americas with 2 Chinooks. Get some extra soldiers early on, train them, and this isn't really a problem. It's a freight chopper. It's not meant to go really fast.
IMHO, it's working just fine. Admittedly, I haven't started getting intercepted, haven't come across terrorsites and haven't got a 3rd base going yet, in most of my plays, due to research bug