Since nobody else has posted anything today, here's a headline. The Army has decided to cancel the Comanche program, their next generation armed scout helicopter that had been in development for nearly 20 years and was just about to go into production. The Army will have to pay Sikorsky & Boeing $2 billion in cancellation fees, and the termination will leave many unemployed.
Posted by Fatboy at February 23, 2004 05:10 PMseeing things like "$41 billion" and "20 years" and "flying in 2009" makes me think the powers that be decided that future spendings should be based on expected value in the future (specifically the expectations of comanche compared to the expectations of the air-and-maneuver transport program), not on a sunk cost in the past. maybe they're wrong in their expectations for the future, or maybe i'm wrong, as i know very little about defense contracts and even less about the comanche.
Posted by: Roy at February 23, 2004 06:16 PM$2B in cancellation can pay a lot of salary to a lot of unemployed aircraft workers for a long time...and there's a .01% chance of it happening.
Also, now that the Comanche has joined the Crusader in the junk pile and the Raptor is "under review," Generals is looking a lot less realistic. Pity.
Posted by: Chris at February 23, 2004 06:26 PM