Military officials grilled on decision to cancel Comanche

House lawmakers upset with the Army's decision this week to cancel its Comanche helicopter program questioned top Army officials Wednesday about the potential for purchasing next-generation helicopters from foreign helicopter manufacturers.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., voiced concern about the potential loss of highly skilled employees that form the U.S. helicopter industrial base to competition from overseas suppliers.

Larson asked about possible reliance on foreign technology in connection with the Army's new development effort, dubbed the Joint Multirole Helicopter.

"Will these platforms be made and produced with American parts, American know-how and ideas, and American labor, and not part of some international coalition or partnership that will look at this thing jointly?" Larson asked Acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee and Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker.

Brownlee said the program was in the early stages of development and that it was unclear whether there would be any restrictions on foreign participation in the program. Schoomaker added that the health of the U.S. helicopter industry would be an important factor in determining whether the military chose to buy American when it came to its next generation of helicopters.

"It's the same common sense to me that the more healthy our helicopter industry is in this country, the more likely it is that it will be the source of whatever we do," Schoomaker said. He added that the decision to cancel the Comanche program and revamp the Army's aviation road map was expected to revitalize the domestic helicopter industry.

The Army's decision to kill the Comanche was a blow to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. of Stratford, Conn., which had teamed with Chicago-based Boeing Co., to develop the craft, a stealth copter. Sikorsky and the few other U.S. firms that make up the American helicopter industry are under pressure from European helicopter manufacturers that increasingly dominate the market.

Currently, the United States is preparing to select a next-generation presidential helicopter, a competition that pits Sikorsky's all-American VH-92 against the US101, made by a U.S.-European consortium comprised of Lockheed Martin Corp., AgustaWestland and Bell Helicopter Textron. The competition is likely to draw the attention of Hunter, who proposed last year to increase the minimum amount of U.S.-made content in U.S. military weapons systems from 50 to 65 percent.