Today, the Pentagon announced its decision to cancel the Comanche project in front of a stunned audience. This comes as a total surprize, due to the fact that few rumours or clues indicated such an action might take place. The cancelation of the program comes amidst heated debate over another program to develop the F-22 Raptor fighter.

The RAH-66 Comanche was a twin engine, low observability helicopter, the first in the world to be developed specifically for the armed reconnaissance role. Developed through a program which costed the Pentagon no less than 36 billion dollars, RAH-66 Comanche was to enter active service starting 2008, and replace a fleet of aging AH-1 Cobra's and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior's by the turn of the next decade. In the far future, the RAH-66 would eventually get to replace the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter as well. The US Armed Forces intended to purchase 1,213 Comanche helicopters for a total price of 34 billion dollars. The fleet would have been organized in new "Aviation battalions", as part of the US Army's Aviation Force 2000 modernization program.

The US Army said it will use the 14.6 billion dollars allocated so far for the purchase of Comanche's between 2004 and 2011 to buy 796 additional Blackhawk and other helicopters, as well as to modernize 1,400 helicopters already in the fleet. Besides that, the US Army seeks to develop and produce a new, more affordable armed reconnaissance helicopter, as well as around 303 light utility helicopters and 368 armed reconnaissance planes.

In the forseable future, the attack helicopter role will be soley played by the AH-64D Apache Longbow.