Talk:Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

Hulk (2003 film)

Surprised to see no mention of the fictitious depiction in Hulk, but added a reference with screenshots from the movie in any case. best, Sunil060902 (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Probably because a fictional rendering is not really notable, if it was a real aircraft it might be added to Aircraft in fiction rather than here. I have removed it. MilborneOne (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

As per WP:AIRPOP these go in Aircraft in fiction, not in the aircraft type articles. It is already there at Aircraft_in_fiction#RAH-66_Comanche. - Ahunt (talk) 20:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

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LHX and UH-1

"During 1982, the U.S. Army initiated the Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX) program with the aim of producing a replacement for several existing rotorcraft, including the UH-1, AH-1, OH-6, and OH-58 helicopters."

This has no citation and it's definitely wrong about LHX being intended to replace the AH-1 Cobra gunship and UH-1 Iroquois utility - as Wikipedia's own pages on the relevant topics show. The UH-60 Black Hawk began entering service to replace the UH-1 in 1979, three years before LHX, so this is almost comically wrong - I wonder what threw the editor so badly off the truth... I'm not attacking whoever put it there, I'm simply pointing out the problem so it can be fixed. The UH-60 development section also has citations.

Meanwhile the AH-64 Apache first flew in 1975, a full seven years before LHX was issued, so although it didn't enter service until 1986, still pretty far ahead of LHX. In fact the Apache's development section is a brilliant example of the type, and it specifies, with citations, that it was the AAH program.

I've got no idea if the LHX was meant to replace the OH-6 Cayuse or not... This isn't my demesne, I don't have books to hand covering the LHX program or OH-6 and OH-58 development/successor. Thought I'd point this out though. I don't make edits personally, it's not worth the grief when someone gets narky.

118.211.110.85 (talk) 23:26, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not wrong, but it does need to be sourced. The Army still had many hundreds of all those types in service in the early 80s, and it had hoped that the LHX would be cheaper and smaller than the UH-60 and AH-64. It didn't work out that way. BilCat (talk) 23:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

That section of the paragraph actually cites 2 sources, and I can confirm that one of them, Frawley, mentions it. According to that source, the Army wanted to replace 5000 helicopters (total) of all those types. Remember, this was still during the Cold War, when the Army still had nearly 10,000 helicopters. BilCat (talk) 23:50, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I spent some time researching this immediately after posting, and yeah, I wasn't aware that the time that the LHX program originally intended to produce a utility version that would supplement the UH-60. I was aware that the UTTAS program from 1972 was intended to replace the UH-1, and that the resulting UH-60 Black Hawk was already replacing the UH-1s (from 1979) years prior to the US Army starting a program to replace the UH-1 (with the AH-1/AH-64 being similar situation) according to the leading sentence in the section. Thus, it read as just plain wrong - and since that sentence wasn't cited (I see that it is now which is great) I didn't have anything to verify.

That said, I do think there's room for improvement beyond adding the citation. IMHO the plain reading of the first sentence in the development section is that the LHX was "the" program to replace the UH-1 and AH-1 when in fact it's closer to a program to supplement the UH-60 and AH-64 as well as replacing the OH-6 and OH-58. I don't think it really conveys that at all, but rather it seems to make no sense in light of the existence of the AH-64 and UH-60.

Based on what I dug up, the US Army had intended that the AAH and UTTAS would replace the entire AH-1 and UH-1 fleets. By 1982 though the Army had concluded that the new types weren't being delivered in sufficient quantity or rapidly enough to meet its needs, and also that it was not a practical possibility to reach those levels. Thus, new types that could supplement the AH-64 and UH-60 were needed, and naturally they would be less capable and lighter in order to meet cost and construction timeframes. This dovetailed with the outstanding need to replace the OH-6 and OH-58, particularly since the Army had already concluded that the new observation (or SCAT for scout-attack) helicopter would need to be armed, thus it could perform light attack roles to support the AH-64 as the primary attack helicopter. Spinning off a utility variant which is a less demanding and complex type would complete the required range of roles.

All that said, ultimately the LRX dropped the utility type when the US Army concluded later that it would have sufficient numbers of UH-60 and AH-64 to meet its needs, and all the program needed to do was replace the OH-6 and OH-58. I don't have any strong feelings about how that all should be included, simply that as it stands, the statement that the LRX was to replace the AH-1 and UH-1 is more confusing than informative. 58.6.221.243 (talk) 19:53, 27 June 2022 (UTC)