Army ends 20-year helicopter program

Army ends 20-year helicopter program
Canceled Comanche program will cost Army at least $10 billion
Monday, February 23, 2004 Posted: 1:50 PM EST (1850 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.

Pentagon officials said a public announcement was planned for Monday afternoon.

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, Connecticut, where the Comanche is being
built, opened last year and employs about 400 workers.

The Comanche has 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," said Eric Miller of the Project on Government
Oversight, a private watchdog group.

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.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.