Silver Lining: Comanche helicopter's loss could be a big win for Army Guard aviation

National Guard, May 2004 by Prawdzik, Christopher

When the Army decided in February to cancel a helicopter program many considered a Cold War relic, Army National Guard aviation suddenly had a potential financial windfall.

But Guard leaders and advocates are trying to temper their optimism. Yes, there will be more money available to modernize the Army Guard aging helicopter fleet.

But funds reallocated from the cancellation of the $14.6 billion RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter program must travel through unpredictable political, financial and bureaucratic processes before the Guard sees any new helicopters.

"While nothing is set in stone, it is our hope that the funding previously allocated for the Comanche will be re-directed to Army National Guard aviation programs which are currently unfunded but are vital to the Guard mission," said Sean Foertsch, Army activities coordinator at the NGAUS.

The National Guard Bureau view is much the same. Officials don't expect immediate overnight changes in helicopter procurement; however, Comanche's cancellation was good news.

"Everybody always talks about $14 billion lor Comanche," said Col. George Gluski, Army Aviation and Safety Division chief. "Well, it wasn't all going to be plunked down in 2004. It was [always going to be] spread out from now to 2011."

As a result of the Comanche cancellation, the Army Guard should receive 204 new light utility helicopters from fiscal year 2006 through 2011. This helicopter is still on the drawing board but primarily would be designed for homeland missions.

In addition, the Army had planned to cascade 597 UH-60 Black Hawks to the Army Guard between 2006 and 2011. The figure is now 710. And as many as 28 more CH-47 Chinooks will now go to the Army Guard.

Guard officials also are hopeful that Comanche's end will mean more money for Army Guard fixedwing aircraft, aviation-related military construction, maintenance equipment and air traffic services.

"We're not going to a champagne budget," Gluski said. "But we're definitely going up to where we are basically getting those components that we need to basically take care of the aircraft."

The Comanche program was another victim of changing times and threats.

The world was different when the project began in 1983. This was not long after President Ronald Reagan made his famous "Evil Empire" speech to the British House of Commons. The Berlin Wall still separated the East and West, and the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air flight 007 killing 269 passengers and crew for violating its air space.

Potential contingencies were limited to a large-front ground war in Europe or the Korean Peninsula.

The Comanche was designed to stop Soviet armor columns. It was to carry 14 Hellfire anti-tank missiles, 56 rockets or 28 stinger air-to-air missiles. It also was designed with a 20-mm cannon m its nose.

Today's threats, however, are dramatically different and more varied. Following an Army aviation study that began in 2003, Acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee in February announced a new Army aviation restructuring plan.

"We must replace the older helicopters in our fleet, especially in the National Guard and Army Reserve," he said. "We must ensure the National Guard and Army Reserve have the capabilities necessary to accomplish the mission they are performing ... in the war on terror in numerous deployments around the world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to meet their responsibilities for homeland defense."

The Comanche simply didn't fit, he said.

"We looked very closely at the operational environment in which we're currently operating and have operated in the last two and a hall years ... and decided that it was inconsistent with the capabilities that were in the Comanche."

The Comanche program also was consuming money needed to upgrade and maintain existing helicopters, particularly during this period of high operations tempo.

"When you take a look at it from a purely business standpoint, we have about a little over $14 billion in the program out to 2011," said Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff. "And if you take a look at the [more than] $100 billion worth of inventory we have in the current fleet and the capability that we can achieve out of the investment ... it makes a lot of sense to pull this over and to take ourselves forward."

But even with the loss of 20 years in the Comanche's development, Army officials said the effort wasn't a waste.

"We will retain relevant technologies developed in the Comanche program and our technological base, and we'll pursue research and development more applicable to future aviation initiatives, to include the joint multi-role helicopter, the joint aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles," Brownlee said.

Gluski agreed.

"It became evident that Comanche was not the solution set necessary to make us relevant ...particularly with respect to those things going on in both Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. "Comanche was not meeting those mission set requirements that [we] saw in the near term, or possibly in the long term."

Cold War considerations versus the current situation also were important in making this decision.