Posted on 07/02/2002 12:55:50 PM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
HUNTSVILLE -- The Army's Comanche helicopter program is down to its last chance.The Army has spent $5.2 billion over two decades to develop the stealthy, armed reconnaissance helicopter. But the program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Critics want to scrap the program, and a congressional committee recently said its support of the Comanche is in jeopardy unless there's a quick turn-around.
And the Army is asking the Pentagon to bless a plan that restructures the program a sixth and final time. The program will need another $6.7 billion to finish development over the next 11 years.
"When we started out with this process, I think the Army made it very clear ... that this was our last chance," said Col. Bob Birmingham, program manager for the Comanche program office at Redstone Arsenal. "We had to put a program together that made sense, that had realism in it, and then gave the Army as near a guarantee of success as we could get."
Comanche is the Army's next-generation helicopter. It would replace the AH-1 Cobra, the OH-58 Kiowa and eventually the AH-64 Apache.
But the Comanche would provide new capabilities, one of the biggest being the ability to process target, reconnaissance, communications and sensor information into a comprehensive combat system.
The two-man helicopter is designed for speeds approaching 200 mph. It's also the Army's first stealthy helicopter for precision strikes deep within enemy territory, day or night and in bad weather.
About 300 people work on the Comanche program in Huntsville most of them at the Army's Aviation and Missile Command. Contractors around the country are building the helicopter and its parts. Eventually, pilots would train to fly the Comanche at Fort Rucker.
Work on Comanche began in 1983. A team of Boeing-Sikorsky won the contract to be prime contractor in 1991. But the program was restructured five times in response to funding cuts, schedule delays, and design and management changes.
The Comanche schedule has slipped several times, with the latest plan calling for the first fighting unit to get the helicopters in September 2009.
Latest change:
The Comanche moved in March 2000 from the early developmental phase into the pre-production phase, in which a final version of the craft is prepared for production.
"We thought we had a pretty good plan back in March of 2000. We thought it was risky but we also felt it was worth giving a shot," Birmingham said.
Within six months, however, the program office realized all the goals and objectives could not be accomplished, Birmingham said.
Those risks included not having enough equipment to test software and other parts. There also were concerns that there weren't enough spare parts for the flight test program or enough flight hours planned to test the reliability of components.
Contractors started falling behind schedule, mostly because of the complexity of the task and an underestimation of its difficulty, Birmingham said. So the program in October 2000 began a review that included independent assessments to restructure the program a final time, he said.
The Army is dividing up its purchase of 1,213 helicopters so that the first ones off the line won't have some equipment that's proven to be the most technologically challenging, Birmingham said.
The Army has approved the restructuring, but it still has to be approved by E.C. "Pete" Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. A board chaired by Aldridge will review the request late this summer.
Boeing-Sikorsky believes the plan will work.
Jack Satterfield, a Boeing-Sikorsky spokesman, said of the five previous times the program has been restructured, this is the first time it has included a significant increase in money to accomplish tasks. "I think we're confident we are going to meet the Army's expectations," he said.
Boeing-Sikorsky has built and flown two Comanche prototypes.
The first pre-production model the third Comanche is being built and is expected to be flown first in March 2005, Birmingham said.
The program also includes adding the capability for the Comanche pilot to operate remote-controlled, unmanned aircraft equipped with cameras and other devices to provide information of what is ahead.
The Pentagon has been considering cutting programs and putting more money into systems, such as the unmanned aircraft. The Comanche frequently comes up as one of the weapon systems near the budget chopping block.
If the Comanche can work as advertised, it will be a great helicopter, said Christopher Hellman, a senior analyst with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information and co-author of a report that recommended killing the Comanche and other expensive weapons systems. "But they can't get it to work as advertised," he said.
It would be cheaper to continue buying new Apache helicopters and update Kiowa helicopters in tandem with unmanned aircraft, according to that report.
The House of Representatives and Senate approved bills last week that would give the Comanche program about $914 million next year. The House version includes a $6 billion cap on spending for the remainder of the development and requires the military's inspector general to submit a report on the project's progress by March 1 of each year. The House Appropriations committee had said in its report earlier last week that its "full support for this program is now in jeopardy unless the Army can show marked progress over the next fiscal year."
Attempts to cut the program would be met by opposition from Alabama's congressional delegation, including Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
"It's a must-have for the Army," said Michael Brumas, press secretary for Sessions.
Hellman said he doesn't believe the Comanche is in any real danger, and Birmingham expressed confidence that the restructured program will produce a lethal and stealthy helicopter.
But if it appears the program is headed down the same path as before and can't meet its schedule or other objectives, Birmingham said, "the program will be terminated because it'll be something that's just too difficult."
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