ARH’s first try is cancelled

After the close of the stock market this evening the Department of Defense announced that they are canceling the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) contract with Bell. The ARH-70 was to be a replacement for the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior aircraft that has been in service for over twenty years. ARH was one of the programs created out of the end of the RAH-66 Comanche program. Bell had run into cost and schedule growth issues with the program, much of it probably due to an overly optimistic US Army estimate on the program. The program had suffered a Nunn-McCurdy cost breach and that required DoD to either certify to Congress on the necessity of the program, or cancel it. Now the Army will start over.

See The Wall Street Journal for more.

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