Source : Janes Defences Weekly
US Army Axes Comanche Programme
By Joshua Kucera JDW Staff Reporter
and
Andrew Koch Washington Bureau Chief
Washington, DC
The US Army has abandoned the multi-billion dollar RAH-66 Comanche
reconnaissance helicopter programme, saying that the system was too
vulnerable to anti-aircraft threats and did not fit with future
army plans. Funding earmarked for it will be better spent on buying
existing helicopter models, upgrading old aircraft and starting an
entirely new armed reconnaissance helicopter programme, senior army
officials said at a Pentagon briefing Monday.
Dropping the Comanche will save $14.6 billion over Fiscal Years
2004-2011, said acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee, Army
Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker and Lt Gen Richard Cody,
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
That money would have bought 121 Comanches and will now be used for
796 new helicopters and upgrading 1,400 more. "This is an army
initiative," Schoomaker said. "It's not just about terminating
Comanche," but part of a larger restructure.
The officials said the army will now start to plan an entirely new
reconnaissance aircraft as a replacement for the OH-58 Kiowa.
The army also plans to buy a new version of the AH-64 Apache, known
as Block III. Army officials Monday said this version will have all
the advantages of the Comanche except stealthiness. The army will
also:
* accelerate the fielding of Aircraft Survivability Equipment
technology to forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,
* buy 303 new light utility helicopters to replace 422 UH-1 Hueys,
which will be phased out,
* buy 80 additional UH-60L Black Hawk utility helicopters above
what had already been planned,
* buy 25 new fixed-wing C-XX inter-theatre cargo planes to replace
the C-23 Sherpa,
* buy 20 CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters above what had
already been planned,
* fund a joint heavy-lift helicopter programme to replace all the
army's cargo and heavy-lift helicopters by 2020, and
* fund new plans for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The army has spent $6.9 billion to date on Comanche, and over the
life of the programme would have had to spend a total of $39
billion to buy 650, Cody said. The army will have to pay $450-680
million in termination fees to the Comanche's contractors,
primarily Boeing and Sikorsky, said Asst. Secretary of the Army for
Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Claude Bolton.
The RAH-66's demise has long been predicted. The US, facing a
burgeoning budget deficit, is expected to cut some defense
programmes and Comanche's large slice of the pie had been thought
to be particularly vulnerable.
Schoomaker ordered an aviation task force six months ago to examine
all aspects of army aviation, including the Comanche, as part of an
effort dramatically transform the army to a lighter, more modular
force. The decision to cut the Comanche programme came out of this
group, the officials said Monday.
The Comanche was intended to be a light reconnaissance helicopter
with stealth capabilities. But advances in UAVs have suggested that
they might do that job better, while simple rocket-propelled
grenade and missile attacks on US helicopters in Iraq have shown
that the Comanche's stealthiness would not be as useful as it was
thought at the 1983 inception of the programme, when it was
designed to face Soviet air defense systems.
However, army officials were until recently saying publicly that
they were committed to the Comanche.
Gen. Richard Cody, deputy chief of staff for the army, took a
Comanche for a test drive in December. In January, he called it
"the best aircraft we've ever built ... We now have an aircraft
with no limitations except the pilot."
Low-rate initial production was to have started in 2006.
