Cancellation Will Cost Army At Least $10 Billion
The Comanche helicopter has caused many to awe at its reported
stealth characteristics, advanced flight controls, and superb
firing platform. Well, forget all that because the entire program
has been axed by Uncle Sam. The Army has decided to cancel its
Comanche helicopter program, a multibillion-dollar project to build
a new-generation chopper for armed reconnaissance missions,
officials said Monday. The contractors for Comanche are Boeing Co.
and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
With about $8 billion already invested in the program, and the
production line not yet started, the cancellation is one of the
largest in the history of the Army. It follows the Pentagon's
decision in 2002 to cancel the Crusader artillery program --
against the wishes of Army leaders.
Congressional lawmakers and company executives associated with
the program were scrambling Monday to figure out the Pentagon's
plans. Sikorsky spokesman Matthew Broder would only say that "we
are on track and fully funded until we hear otherwise." The
Sikorsky plant in Bridgeport (CT), where the Comanche is being
built, opened last year and employs about 400 workers. The fate of
the facility and its workers is now in question. This is not the
first negative blow to the 20-year development program, as the
Comanche has often been a target of critics who say it was an
expensive mistake.
"The Comanche program
has been plagued with wildly unrealistic technological expectations
and the bugaboo of pay more and get less. Cancellation of this
program would free up funds for weapons that work and meet our
country's true national security needs," Eric Miller of the Project
on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group, told the
Associated Press.
Loren Thompson, who follows aviation and other defense issues
for the Lexington Institute think tank said he believes the Army
under new chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker favors ending the
Comanche program, even though the service had been counting on it
to provide a new reconnaissance capability.
"The Bush administration has now killed the two biggest Army
weapons programs it inherited from the Clinton administration,"
Thompson said, referring to the Crusader and Comanche. Earlier this
year the White House budget office asked the Pentagon to provide
independent reviews of the Comanche and another expensive aviation
program, the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter.
Although killing the Comanche project would save tens of billion
in future costs, the cancellation decision is expected to require
the Army to pay at least $2 billion in contract termination fees.
The Comanche program was started in 1983 and had survived many
reviews. Under a restructuring worked out in 2002, a decision on
going ahead with initial low-rate production was to be made in
2007, with the first Comanches delivered to the Army in 2009 and
full-rate production to begin in 2010.