The pentagon just canceled the Comache armed recon helocopter.

8 billion down the drain.

At least it looked cool.

(for us Hawks out there, that's two really big weapons programs canceled by Bush's boys - the Army's fancy dancy new mobil artilery system and now the Comache - I wonder when the FA-22 is getting the ax?)

Btw - war president? Cutting military programs? I guess we have to pay for Iraq somehow.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/23/helicopter.cancel.ap/index.html

that's a god thing.
That piece of s... was supposed to cost  12 millions $ but after all "refinements" thr price tag went up to 58 millions/unit.

yes, it's a shame.

Comanche.

And its somewhat necessary for looks cause its damn well intimidating, especially if you only have rocks and youre infront of it on the ground.

All this new weaponry, I mean really who are we kidding who are we fighting.
Insergents in buildigs with RPGs, We dont need a 30 million dollar helicopter to kill that. Wast of money, But It did look damn nice.

Alaric is closer to the truth than most.  The real problem with the Comanche was how long it took to develop.  This thing is head and shoulders above the Apache Longbow, and every other helicopter out there, bar none.  But, it's been so long in development, that there are new advances in technology that they'd want to put into practice, but can't now with the Comanche.

Attack helicopters are a very very useful tool (unlike the Crusader, which had all the negatives that tanks do, but with none of the positives).  

There are already F22's active in the service now.  And they have already purchased quite a few JSF's.  The JSF's may cut into the F22's numbers, being cheaper (they'll probably just replace the F15's with the 22's now, and the F16's with the JSF's).  The 15's and 16's will hang around for a while, especially in the Air National Guard, but the airframes of both of them are pretty old now, and would have been replaced long ago if we hadn't been in relatively (compared to the previous 50) peaceful period the last 30 years.  

If any of you haven't seen it, Nova did a great special on the JSF selection, with the two aircraft being developed, the change process, etc.  Great documentary, but more importantly, how quickly they developed the new planes is what needs to happen in the future.

The JSF looks pretty awesome.  Transformer-like qualities could make it a very good overall plane, and would save loads of money.

Anyway, what ever happened to the Blackbird?  That was (is?) a pretty chill plane, was faster than most if I remember correctly.  I'm not a plane expert, I just know it was awesome looking.  Maybe it just sucked so they got rid of it?  Sry guys im on speed so i might sound like im just rambling or something.  Just humor me.

I'll call it adderall if you prefer...sounds less...ominous...