The only two RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopters ever built never served with a combat unit, and both sit in the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Story Highlights
- The Pentagon canceled the Comanche on Monday, Feb. 23, 2004, after nearly $7 billion had been spent on it.
- Split across the two test aircraft, that bill comes to roughly $3.5 billion apiece.
- The helicopter had grown too heavy, and its software, its gun and its target-finding system fell short.
- It was planned in the 1980s to fight Soviet tanks, an enemy that was gone by the time it was ready.
- Its only war was on paper, in a Tom Clancy novel.
Why It Never Made the Cut
The Army dropped the Comanche because it ran into trouble on several fronts. It gained so much weight that people wondered whether it could lift its full load of weapons. “So heavy, in fact, that some wondered if the stealth helicopter would even get off the ground,” defense writer Alex Hollings later wrote. Efforts to cut weight and get more power from the engines did not work.
The software had bugs. The 20mm gun was less accurate than promised, and the system for spotting targets did not perform as hoped. Meanwhile, the world had changed. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and the Taliban and al Qaeda, the enemies of the war on terror, had few tanks for a tank hunter to chase. On Monday, Feb. 23, 2004, the Army announced the end of the program.
Built to Hunt Tanks
The Army started planning the Comanche in 1982, during the Reagan years. It was meant to replace Vietnam-era scout and light attack helicopters, such as the AH-1 Cobra. Its job was to find and destroy enemy tanks and armored troop carriers and to send fast, accurate battlefield information back to commanders.
The Army asked companies for designs in 1988, and a Boeing and Sikorsky team won the contract around 1991. The first Comanche flew on Thursday, Jan. 4, 1996. At first the Army planned to buy about 1,200 of them.
Stealth With Its Weapons Tucked Inside
The Comanche had a body made of composite materials, light and strong layered fibers instead of metal, plus digital flight controls. To stay hard for enemy radar to see, it carried its missiles in bays inside the body rather than hanging them outside. Those bays held six Hellfire missiles, which are guided anti-tank missiles, and 12 Stinger missiles for shooting down enemy aircraft. More could be mounted outside when stealth did not matter. Its three-barrel 20mm Gatling gun could also be stowed away.
Two turbine engines gave it a top dash speed of 201 mph and a maximum range of 1,449 miles.
A Combat Career Only in Fiction
The Comanche did see action in one place: Tom Clancy’s novel “Debt of Honor,” where the helicopter serves in a made-up war. Some writers called it “the F-35 of helicopters” because of its stealth. Others say “the F-22 of helicopters” fits better, because the F-22 at least went into production, even in smaller numbers than planned. The Comanche never did.
Two Aircraft, One Museum
Both surviving prototypes, or test aircraft, are kept by the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama. There they remain, a pair of helicopters designed to slip past enemy radar that never flew a mission against an enemy.
For taxpayers, the lesson is simple. Nearly $7 billion bought two museum pieces. Weapons that take decades to build can be outdated before they are ready, and the bill comes due either way.
Sources:
nationalinterest.org, govexec.com, globalsecurity.org
