Description
On 23 February 2004, the Acting Secretary of the Army Les Aspin and the Chief of Staff of the Army General Peter Schoomaker, announced the cancellation of the Comanche program. In the minds of these two gentlemen, the evidence presented in a 2003 comprehensive review of aviation-a changing environment, an aging fleet, and budgetary concerns-demanded immediate and drastic action. This paper investigates those claims through the eyes of the Comanche program managers during the final seven years of the program. After numerous interviews, it is apparent that the claims made during the cancellation briefing do hold merit. However, they only portray a snapshot in time. To understand why the program suffered its eventual fate, one needs to consider the program in its entirety.
