- Aug 18, 2006
- 9,976
- 3
- 71
Meh, thing is, the Russians have superior flying combat planes, but as proven in the various Cold Wars, they're armanment was behind ours, and their missiles sucked in comparison to ours.
Also, on a note from Wikipedia:
"However, on February 23, 2004, the U.S. Army announced their decision to cancel the Comanche helicopter program in view of the need to provide funds to renovate the existing helicopter fleet of aging attack, utility, and reconnaissance aircraft.
....the growing popularity in the military of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance purposes ? in addition to tests, UAVs had proven their worth in Afghanistan and Iraq. About US$8 billion had already been invested in the Comanche program at the time of its termination and an additional US$450-680 million was required in contract termination fees to main program partners Sikorsky and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
...Technology developed for the Comanche will be integrated into the Apache and other U.S. military helicopter developments. Some of its roles will be taken over by the ARH-70, an off-the shelf armed reconnaissance helicopter."
Huh, so it wasn't engineered to be an attack copter anyway. It was meant to be a UAV that could guide missiles and have a machine gun--exactly what the RQ FireScout is meant to do, without risk of loss of life, so I guess thats alright then.
Also, on a note from Wikipedia:
"However, on February 23, 2004, the U.S. Army announced their decision to cancel the Comanche helicopter program in view of the need to provide funds to renovate the existing helicopter fleet of aging attack, utility, and reconnaissance aircraft.
....the growing popularity in the military of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance purposes ? in addition to tests, UAVs had proven their worth in Afghanistan and Iraq. About US$8 billion had already been invested in the Comanche program at the time of its termination and an additional US$450-680 million was required in contract termination fees to main program partners Sikorsky and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
...Technology developed for the Comanche will be integrated into the Apache and other U.S. military helicopter developments. Some of its roles will be taken over by the ARH-70, an off-the shelf armed reconnaissance helicopter."
Huh, so it wasn't engineered to be an attack copter anyway. It was meant to be a UAV that could guide missiles and have a machine gun--exactly what the RQ FireScout is meant to do, without risk of loss of life, so I guess thats alright then.
