When the Army killed off the stealthy RAH-66 Comanche attack chopper back in 2004, it commissioned a bunch of "quick and easy" new helicopter programs to fill the gap. At least one of them turned out to be not so quick, and not so easy. Bell's ARH-70 scout is two years late and now costs $6.4 billion for around 500 aircraft, instead of the original $3.6 billion.
Under any other circumstances, the ARH-70 would seem to be a prime candidate for cancellation, but it keeps stumbling along. "No viable alternative to it exists," Aviation.com explains in a new report. So who's to blame?
Analyst Loren Thompson "places the blame for the ARH-70 disaster squarely on the Army." "Operationally the Armed Reconnaissance
Helicopter is a success, it meets requirements. The unit cost went up due to the Army changing the requirements," Thompson told the magazine.
But wait! "At the Army's lower Program Objective Memoranda level, however, 'there is a lot of anger towards Bell' due to the perception that the company failed to deliver."
Who's right? Everyone, perhaps. In one sense, the new helicopter's problems are part of a much broader trend. "The last completely successful U.S. military helicopter program was the 1970s-vintage UH-60
Blackhawk helicopter," the story concludes.
(Photo: Bell)
