Wanna know why the development period was so long? Lack of funding. I
joined Comanche PMO in 1989. We awarded the first EMD contract in 1991,
then funding was slashed by over 50% in 1992. For TEN YEARS we wandered
along without sufficient funding to achieve the stated program objectives.
We were restructured FIVE TIMES in that period, with the same result each
time - not enough money to really complete the program. It was only with
the last restructure in 2002 that we were given enough funding to do the
program right. That's the cruel reality - we were finally funded and on
track to complete on schedule, and we were cancelled....

Dan Hollenbaugh
Comanche Test Engineer

wrote in message ...
BTW for my Real Job I did a customer visit to Lockheed-Martin in Florida
last year, and one thing that blew me away is that they had been working
on Comanche hardware and software for TEN YEARS. That kind of
development cycle puts some interesting challenges in front of the
companies that provide their hardware/software development tools - i.e.
we would like to obsolete incredibly old versions of our development
tools *eventually*.

In other words, I believe that Windows 3.1 was state-of-the-art ten
years ago. Or was it Windows 2.0? It's been so long...

I just hope that some aspects of the Comanche development effort are
used in some other products/systems, so that those 1o years of many
peoples' work and sweat equity wasn't a complete waste.

May DOS rest in peace,

Dave Blevins

On 24 Feb 2004 23:40:15 GMT, idday (jimmineecricket)
wrote:

(a) did they have to spend $7B before deciding this?


I find it amazing that they were able to come to the conclusion at all.
The
system so often just keeps on going after the momentum is initiated and we
are
left with weapon systems that either dont work right or are obsolete
before
they are deployed.
Anyone see the report on the Patriot Missile? We have been misled on how
well
it works....or should I say how it doesnt work. Unless you count shooting
down
your own aircraft as working.