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US Army Scraps Comanche Helicopter
swordboy writes "The US Army just scrapped the Comanche helicopter program - a joint venture with Boeing and United Technologies. After 20 years and billions of taxpayer dollars, it never produced an operational helicopter. Open-source helicopter, anyone?" The article notes: "The Comanche is designed to receive and process intelligence from drones and surveillance aircraft and pass it to ground units. The Army was directed in 2002 to focus its research on producing a reconnaissance helicopter rather than one that can attack as well as scout. The helicopter was intended to counter Soviet weapons."
Oh DEAR GOD NO! Does this mean I have to scrap playing Comanche 4?? I just got into the last Mission set. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!
... I was kinda partial to it, ever since LHX came out for MSDOS back in like 1990 or so..
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http://store6.yimg.com/I/hobby-warehouse_1772_8
Who is going to break the news to Novalogic?
If it was open source the Russians would have just looked at the code and found out how to counter it. Doesn't sound like a very good military plan to me.
Just as long as they don't cancel the A-10. The greatest tank buster ever.
...according to CNN, the cancellation decision is expected to require the Army to pay at least $2 billion in contract termination fees. That is, assuming, of course, that they tell the primary contractors the program is over, considering the Sikorsky people think we are on track and fully funded until we hear otherwise.
libertarianswag.com
This isn't that bad of news for the Boeing company, just United Technologies. Because the US is no longer bankrolling the Comanche project, they will have to upgrade existing Apache attack helicopters over time. The Apaches are built by Boeing.
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There was no civillian application for such a copter, it's weapons payload was dwarfed by the Longbow, which can carry racks of hellfires. What purpose did it have? It's operational radius is tiny compared to the unmanned recon vehicles, and with lo radar signature X projects being developed, the future was in remote control surveillance.
The lesson here is that design to deployment windows have to become shorter, when platforms take time measured in decades, that's just too long. Smaller, quicker, faster, cheaper.
What I dont get is why NOW did they decide to kill it, they have been developing this thing for years, made a big deal about its stealth capabilities sold the public on its use and THEN decide to kill it.......
And they wonder why we bitch when they start programs? Here is a perfect example of them wasting away our money on a program that even with it set to go to production, was canceled.
Are they THAT dumb?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The current Apache and (much older) Cobra Z revs. can do what the Army will be tasked to do over the next little while given the demise of the Soviet Union and the war on terrorism. So, why spend another 2 billion on a program that *cough*cough* B-2 bomber* cough*, no longer has a mission?
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I can't believe your still running Commanche! I'm running Apache! seriously, 20 years and billions of dollars without a working product. Its tough stuff, but with that type of input and no working output, all I can say is ouch and scrap it.
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We are way better off without the program. Most of our helecopters in iraq and other places( Somalia ) have been shot down by unguided rpg's. The Comanche was going to be a low radar signature helecopter. But how much good does that do when its 20 feet off the ground half the time?
"Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin." --Teddy Roosevelt
This is probably a good move. Incremental changes in weaponry tend to have better long term pay-off than super-weapon development. Especially since most super-weapons are reliant on hundreds of untested systems. Plugging in upgrades to current systems and revising the platform as time goes on, allows failed systems to be backed out. With super-weapons, you have to throw away the entire weapon. (Hundreds of billions potentially down the drain!)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Haliburton must have offered to do it for twice the price.
The Tiger attack helicopter.
The Tiger may well be the last manned combat helo, the battlefield of the future belongs to drones it seems...
It was discovered most of the Soviet Weapons were a bluff and it took this long to scrap the program.
No conflict of interests here, move along...
ob: In Soviet Russia, weapons scrap YOU!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I bet ol Paul and Paul Sr. are gonna be pissed....look for a fight in a episode next seasn
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
The real irony is that "svoiets" no longer exist.
20 years, no working product? Think about that. That's 1984. That's before web pages, before the internet, before Microsoft "took over the world". That's Commodore 64, Atari and Apple days.
8 0T6HB01 .html
In that amount of time. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Interesting link here:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040223/D
"The Comanche decision reflects a growing realization in the Pentagon that the military has more big-ticket weapons projects in the works than it can afford, even after seeing the Pentagon budget grow by tens of billions of dollars since 2001. And it the reflects the rising popularity of unmanned aircraft, for surveillance as well as attack missions, in recent years."
"From the first days of the Bush administration there has been talk of canceling a number of major aviation projects, including the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey hybrid helicopter-airplane and the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter jet, but so far the Comanche has been the only casualty."
They have just sunk a bunch of money into all the new buildings and support structure here at Ft Rucker for this program, not to mention all of the Commanche portatble cockpits running around and the support personnel and equiptment for those... man what a waste... I guess those rumors about waiting to get the new buildings up before the program was canceled where true.
The Army needs helicopters to move soldiers around the battlefield, but with so many other ways of directing fire (much more accurate indirect fire through Paladin systems, for example), and better coordination with the fast-movers (the Air Force and Army have a ways to go in this regard, but they're getting better), the days of the wannabe Hind are over.
Say what you will about Rumsfeld, but he has at least made the top brass look long and hard at all the systems in the pipeline to be sure they match future needs.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Could somebody here who is smarter than I am. (that's lots of you) explain to me the point of a stealthy helo?
Here is my problem with it- don't those big blades spinning around on top create a nice big disc that is going to bounce radar right back? Will any rotary wing aircraft ever be very stealthy? I never understood this helicopter.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
is this outcome the result of too many changes, suggestion, ideas etc throughout the years?
it's similar to software development. the first idea was pretty cool, then investors want their 'good' ideas to be included, then the 'testers' want their 'cool' ideas in that too, and nothing ever happens.
That would have to be the one with sub-contractor in every Congressional district.
Yay!
This means that GUI for our-favorite-web-browser-that's-also-named-after a-helicopter won't have to change it's name suddenly and unexpectedly like all those other open source programs that had nothing to do with whatever else it was that had the same name first.
Uh. Yeah. Good news, that.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
What makes you say that? I'm curious. If you're upset because the Bradley doesn't go up well against MBTs, you're barking up the wrong tree, because the Bradley wasn't designed for that purpose.
If you're saying that the Bradley suffers as a personnel carrier because of its armament, I'd be interested in your sources. I'm not saying this with sarcasm - I've just never heard anyone badmouth the Bradley since the infamous 60 Minutes piece back when the Bradley was still under development.
I have heard mech guys talk about how much they love their Bradley, including one track commander whose Bradley took a T-72 round and kept fighting.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Meanwhile, the Warthog showed it could go into battle, get banged up and survive. Take a look at the wing photo to see what I mean.
After all, how much of that $20 Billion went into basic research that will still be valid the next time someone wants to build a chopper? Wind tunnel data for example doesn't all of a sudden change without reason.
How much of that work led to new systems/ improvements to existing systems that either has allteady been deployed to other choppers, or can resonably be expected to show up in follow on versions and refits of existing choppers?
How much of that money was spent on basic science and engineering whose results will be applied thousands of times in follow-on development projects?
What about all the various lessons learned during the process of design to prototype, is that knowledge lost because the Commanche never went to production?
Lastly, the program was scrapped because the environment which dictated the original requirements is gone, and the new landscape tends to militate against a need for the platform as designed. Several people allready identified areas which ought to be addressed in follow-on designs. The choice to shut down the project as opposed to trying to re-invent it midstream is a money saver, not a money loser. The decision as easily could have been to impose new requirements on an existing project (cough cough B2 cough cough) extending the project by another $20 Billion, still with no production model at the end...
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
I once saw a statistic in the Harper's digest that stated that the Pentagon cannot account for well over a trillion dollars in missing expenses. Now, in the real world, financial mis-management on this scale would be punishable by some serious prison time, but for the Petagon, it's just another "Ooops! Our bad!"
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Unfortunately, in the United States, you don't scrap weapons.
They do, kind of...It's called "war".
What?
That's all I want to know.
The Comanche was a red herring. Our helicopters are great and a whole hell of a lot cheaper than the Comanche ever could have hoped to be. Hell, when my dad was flying AH-1J Cobras, the basic cost of a unit (without certain avionics equipment) was ~$800,000.
Personally, I think the Apache is overpriced ($25 million per unit), too. Remember in the First Gulf War, when they couldn't fly them because the sand damaged their engines? The Cobras flew in that, no problem.
The Comanche was a perfect example of feature creep, a bloated over-thinking of the helicopter's function as a weapon. The cost-per-copy, too, would simply have been too big a burden. Simple, durable, well-designed inexpensive weapons (like the Cobra or A-10 Warthog) are much more effective weapons than machines costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per copy, because if it is damaged--or if you lose one--it is far cheaper to repair or replace.
was a very similar story, and someone involved in the project wrote a book about it, and it was made into a hilarious movie called The Pentagon Wars with Cary Elwes and Kelsey Grammar. Had me laughing out loud! Alas, I have been totally unable to find this movie on any p2p networks. :(
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
First they came for Seawolf, and no one raised the alarm, for we knew the Soviet submarines were inferior.
Then they came for Crusader, for we knew that the battle field of the future would have no place for artillery.
Then they came for Comanche, for we knew that the future battlefield would be observed by drones.
When they came for Osprey we knew that our Marines could maintain antique helicopters better than anyone in the world.
When they came for Raptor we saw that the Eagle would always triumph over Sukhoi, even as the airframes passed the pilots in age.
And when the military was transformed, into a light nimble counter-terrorism and peacekeeper force the hordes of the Red Army descended on Taiwan and we realized our mistake, but there was none to counter them.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
The Comanche is the poster child for enormous pork barrel government defense projects.
Maybe it's an awesome machine, but to spend $8 billion over 20 years and still not be in production is indefensible. It's only a helicopter. You can be sure that if the Army really needed it, it would only have taken a few years to start production.
Back in 1992, I was almost hired by Sikorsky to work as a co-op on this project. They already had an airframe back then. What have they been doing in the 12 years since then? Busy work to keep those multi-million dollar payments coming.
Beyond that, the experiences of the US military in Kosovo and Iraq suggest pretty strongly that the whole attack helicopter concept is flawed. They are too slow, too low, and too vulnerable.
Probably the whole reason the Army ever came up with attack helicopters is that they are forbidden to operate fixed-wing aircraft.
The Commanche supposedly had a radar cross section about 66% less than the current scout helicopter (OH-58D--Kiowa Warrior). Actually, in its original mission--back in '83--stealth made sense. The Commanche was supposed to scout ahead of the Apache Attack helos, locate the Soviet armored formations in Germany, and relay this info back to the Apaches who would pop-up from their hide positions and start spewing Hellfire's at the Ruskies. In this role, having some stealth could have saved them from rapid annihilation by Soviet radar-directed gunnery (ZSU-23s) which always accompanied Soviet advanced formations.
Trouble is, in today's conflicts, a scout helicopter doing it's job is going to be taking all sorts of fire from guerillas or terrorists jumping out of cars and buildings firing RPGs, MANPADS, and automatic weapons. This was a non-issue in a big conventional war in Europe (or Korea for that matter). There's no way to be stealthy flying over a city. Apparently the rotor and engine design was also very quiet, so it might of had some advantage in urban and/or guerilla environments over existing choppers, but you still can't sneak up on anyone in a helicopter (Blue Thunder does not exist).
At $59M a pop, there was no way the Commanche can be bought (if Congress fights this, I'll be spewing email at my Congress-critters to knock it off). You can't pay that much (nearly as much as a JSF is going to cost) for something that as a previous poster pointed out can be shot down by some phanatic with a cheap disposable rocket.
The reason it has taken this long to kill Commanche is that Congress, despite their protestations against a myriad of defense programs over the years, doesn't like to cancel projects because the military procurement budget is the single largest jobs program in the Federal budget. Hell, for two decades they've been trying to kill the B-1 bomber and now they're trying to get the AF to put 21 retired aircraft back in service! It's also a matter of prestige and getting their slice of the procurement pie for the services--what will the Army do to recruit kids without cool weapons to feature in commercials. Plus there's been an unhealthy career track in the military for program managers--instead of fighting for a living, alot of military now do R&D for a living. If your project goes down, there goes you chances for promotion (and perhaps even that lucrative private sector job with a defense contractor).
What the Army needs are some new medium and heavy transport helicopters; something that can get up into the mountains easier in Afghanistan. They can certainly do with some new OH-58s, perhaps with beefier engines and more armor to enable them to take some hits and keep flying. The poor Marine Corps is still flying 40+ year old SH-46 Sea Knights that are only flying because of the herculean effort of Marine mechanics to keep them stuck together. There are a lot of places to spend that $38B that would both increase lethality of our military and better protect our troops.
The trouble is that helicopters, like so many defense systems, have just gotten too expensive due to a combination of gold plating, constantly increasing requirements, and reduced procurement. We used to buy thousands of an aircraft, now we buy hundreds. Stated another way, we used to buy Camrys, now we buy Porsches. The Commanche was the ultimate in gold plating of a project. Ask a pilot over in Iraq or Afghanistan what they'd like and I'm sure they'd tell us something that's rugged, reliable, and easy to fly (oh, and has modern anti-missile systems on board). I'm not saying stop buying Porsches when they're called for, but helos are not the place to be spending that kind of scratch. Take that 38 billion and you can completely upgrade all the current helo inventory with modern anti-missile systems and replace the oldest in inventory with new airframes so our kids aren't flying planes twice as old as they are.
--Len Quam
To respond to the parent comment, America hasn't really worried about countering Soviet/Russian weapons since the First Gulf War (when Soviet T-72's were blowing up like boxes of matches after contact with the plethora of Allied weapons).
There has been a long standing history of the 2 nations responding to weapons (or threat of weapons). The XB-70 scared the Soviets so much that they developed a whole class of fighters (the MiG-25 series) to counter what they saw as a serious threat. America built 2 B-70's and abanoned the project when they realized that high level super-sonic strikes would never succeed.
I think the fact that the Army is looking at unmanned aircraft to handle some of these missions is a good move. It should make for some interesting projects. I think it would be an advantage to be able to send a weapon into a very dangerous situation - one that would be a suicide mission - and not risk the life of our troops. Trained men costs more than machines. Germany and Japan in World War II were still able to produce airplanes even though most of their experienced pilots were killed. Unmanned vehicles would make for a much more efficient and stronger fighting force.
I just hope they don't outsource the software for unmanned vehicles over-seas.
e. Faust
Making one (the issue with the rotors) is not that hard (theory, I realize, actually making one is really hard, but so is making a non-stealth helicopter too).
There are 2 schools of thought in relation to stealth. Absorbtion (very hard, and I can probably overcome it with more transmisison power) and reflection away from you (much easier). There was a test of radar-detectability of cars (car&driver or something) with speed-radars, and the corvette was the lowest (this was some time ago).
Most people thought it was that the car was fiberglass (not true, as the frame underneath had plenty of metal) but rather that the radiator was tilted way back, which reflected the radar away (up) from the receiver. This is also why the F-117 is all angular, it is very hard to get a radar reflection, as no facet is facing towards you (they also use absorbtive/transparent materials).
Take a mirror, and lay it flat in a dark room. Shine a flashlight at an oblique angle, and the mirror is almost invisible (but you see stuff past it with the deflected beam). One thing you may see (it's on the stealth airplanes) is covering the intakes/exhausts with deflecting gratings (helps diffuse thermal stuff as well), which will deflect away from the observer, rather than the verticle wall of spinning turbine blades. The mirror trick is how that F-117 was shot down back in the late 90's in bosnia, which was thought to be one radar (the flashlight) shining across, with a receiver across the valley (like standing by the wall and figuring out the deflection of the beam and back-calculating the location of the deflecting object)
If you look at the apache. you will notice the canopy is angular, which was designed to do the same thing with sunlight (less reflections back to the observer).. The blades can be made of low-radar crossection material (heck fiberglass would be virtually invisible as an example, as would carbon fiber or ceramics), but you also need to make it balistically tolerant (cermaics shatter when shot for instance), and flexible to survive the rigors of hard flying. Making it silent is probably much harder than making it radar low-observable.
With the proliferation of shoulder fired heat-seaking missles, one also must make your copter heat stealthy as well, and often tricks like blowing the exhaust up into the rotor wash spreads the heat signature out to hide it, and make it hard to lock up.
Finally for all those who are talking about survivability, the apache is highly balistically tolerant (military speak for armored), and is also designed to allow for survivability of the pilots in the event of being shot down. There is a test film (or marketing PR film) which showed the apache taking direct fire on a test range from a .50 caliber machine gun with no internal damage, or blade damage (I realize it was staged "just so", but none-the-less impressive...).
The 20 year-old Soviet weapons must be damned good!
"Open-source helicopter, anyone?"
What was the point of that comment? Can you name me one "open source" helicopter that has ever succeeded in a tactical role, or did you just feel the need to slip that in there in order to feel more trendy here on slashdot? It's hard to suck-up to your audience more blatantly than that... Why didn't you just add "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!" while your adding popular, yet ultimately pointless slashisms?
As far as the expendature goes, I'd rather them spend the money, even if it did ultimately fail to turn out a uselful end product. It's the cost of doing business when your looking for the ideal tactical advantage. Some will cost money and fail, while others, like the Tomahawk, Predator, F22 Raptor and JSF succeed. Don't get your panties in a bind, it happens. It sucked so they shut it down. And even in failure I'm sure they surmounted a number of engineering difficulties in designing the thing, stuff that can be applied to other projects that will succed because of Comanche's development. trying to stealth a helicopter has got to teach you something useful, which can be applied to existing helicopters.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The United States Army names helicopters after Tribes both because of the warrior tradition present in the tribe's cultural history and because of a long tradition of American Indians serving with the United States military and the services that came before.
Permission is requested from the Tribal Elders and the proposed name is used only if permission is granted. At the roll out ceremony for the aircraft, representatives of the tribe are honored guests and a Native American ceremony to bless the aircraft is performed.
Future projects like this can be out sourced to India so when it gets canceled, it would've wasted millions of tax payer dollars instead of billions.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
No it would be more like the German Air force having attack aircraft called Stalingrad or Maginot.
I do not profess that the results of manifest destiny on the native American population within the US borders did not result in atrocities. However, when properly armed native Americans were a formidable foe. Most nations respect formidable foes. Naming a powerful class of war machine after a former foe _is_ a way a military shows respect.
More of my thoughts
The A10 was one of the ORIGINAL stealth designs, presicely configured against *exactly* the threat you describe, shoulder launch SAMS.
Ultra-high bypass engines--- Really almost jet powered ducted fans---exhaust over the tail.
The same cowling shields against IR from the side. The engine core is in 3/4" thick armor.
You have to be almost directly behind AND above an A10 to get a good IR sig... Not likely if you are on the ground.
It is also one of the few conceivable designs that can probably _take_ a direct hit BY such a weapon, and still get home. It was designed to take direct hits from 23mm Soviet AA guns... Not recommended in an F/A16, or much else for that matter, short of an M1.
The A10 is also an absolute maintenance dream, with minor exceptions, and likely takes less manpower/hr than anything in the USAF inventory.
Unless the A35 works a WHOLE LOT like an A10 in real use, it is destined to go the way of the Comanche.
I suggest doing with the A10s something like what the Germans did with their F4s---remanufacture them to current specs, current avionics... take the 100s of "retired" airframes out in the desert and remanufacture them, better,stronger, faster etc.
23rd CRS/ECM, Go Flying Tigers!
In building a suburb you chop all the trees down, killing all the birds, and yet the streets are named Bluebird Lane and Oak Street....
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Intent?
"We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children."
"The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians the more convinced I am that they allhave to be killed or maintained as a species of paupers. Their attempts at civilization are simply ridiculous."
"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." -General Willliam T. Sherman
Texas maintained scalp bounties well into the 1870, reducing that state's several million natives to a few thousand by 1880. California after 1849 followed a similar script. Across the west, Indians were forced into concentration camps where their culture was systematically eradicated. Their children were adopted out into white families and shipped off to assimilating boarding schools en masse. As late as the 1970s the BIA was involuntarily sterilizing Indian women. Some researchers belive that by the time that program ended, more than 40% of Indian women of childbearing age had been sterilized.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Also to the person above about the A-10 being a great "tank buster" not anymore.
When discussing conventional warfare with conventional military formations, the best "tank buster" is the WCMD CBU -105( wind corrected munitions container ) ( Think of a CBU canister with a GPS/INS kit to guide it in ANY weather.) The Inside of it are SFW's ( Sensor Fused Weapons or "Skeets" that once deployed seek out a vehicle in it's field of view and kill it.) In OIF 2 of these were dropped from several miles away at 40,000ft from a B-52, in support of a small USMC force that was coming under threat from an Iraqi Armored Brigade. Right after impact about 1/3 of the brigade ( almost 2 dozen tanks ) blew up. Gone. Finished. Seeing their buddies die and not knowing how it happened. the other 2/3s of the Brigade got out of their tanks and surrendered to the USMC.The response to the B-52 from the "G-FAC" ( Ground Forward Air Controller with the Marines) upon seeing the weapons hit was "holy s***". Thats the kind of customer support airpower can provide to a guy on the ground.
An Apache or A-10 could never do that in even their most wet of dreams, without putting aircrew at risk and getting shot at. The goal today is "I can touch you, but you can't touch me.... in any weather." Problem is that A-10s and Apaches have to go in range of enemy guns and get shot up.And they aren't all weather unless assisted by off board sensors ( UAV, JSTARS etc. ) Today tanks and vehicles die en masse and we don't have to get in range of the smaller SAMs and "triple A" ( AAA Anti-Aircraft Artillery) The biggest advantage of the A-10 is that it can get in and out of some crappy airfields. Now it is being converted to do very "un A-10" like work,with LITENING ( proof of concept used in OIF ) and SNIPER-XR when funded ( new gen Laser / Sensor Pods ). Droping PGMs ( Precision Guided Munitions ) from 10,000 feet and higher once they all get them. Also it will be able someday to do more all weather poor vis. work.
Also, another goal: Before enemy ground forces even come in range of our ground forces, they are worked over and beat up for days by our airpower "tank plinking" with LGBs, and WCMD, JSOW, JDAM etc. What does get up to the front is either crippled or ceases to function as an organized combat unit.
Killing the new helo was a good idea. We have plenty of sensor platforms to keep Apache informed ( JSTARS now puts target cueing into the Apache aircrew display ) Used successfully in OIF. Kinda scary where the Apache(s) show up and have excellent situational awareness.
Army Aviation has SERIOUS leadership issues ( that poor use of Apaches in OIF that got a bunch of them shot up ) Very poor mission planning. Should not have happened. Army Aviation has a lot of people issues to solve, that a new useless helo can't solve. These people issues are a first priorty.
Apaches and A-10s are still very useful. Just that some of their traditional jobs like "tank busting" are better done by other methods when possible. The Apache is excellent portable "artillery". ( You cant take field artillery to Afghanistan and go on a long range patrol or offensive through the mountains. Again A-10 gets in and out of some garbage airfields in Iraq and Afghanistan and is very handy. If USAF goes though with the new idea of getting "Jump" JSF ( originally required by USMC and UK ) then bare base options will be even better for CAS ( Close Air Support ) customer service to the grunts.
These are the facts - the media portrayal is different, obviously. *sigh*.
--
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