Talk:Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: bobrayner (talk) 08:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll take over this review if there aren't any objections. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Well-written?

 Checking...

Any comments or issues here? -Fnlayson (talk) 16:14, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

One comment - can you incorporate the "in media" section into the section on the cancellation? Seems to flow logically. SDY (talk) 16:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• I've thought about moving that text to early in the article, but did not think it would fit in right. The cancellation section is good place and that's where I moved it, i.e. done. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:22, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comments by Anotherclown
  • Missing word here: "in which requirement was changed to a reconnaissance...", perhaps "in which the requirement was changed to a reconnaissance..."
  • Grammer here: "incorporating a number of techniques were used to reduce radar cross-section (RCS) and other areas of viability." Specifically "incorporating a number of techniques were used..." Perhaps reword?
  • Would past tense work better here: "the Comanche's RCS is 360 times smaller...", i.e. "the Comanche's RCS was 360 times smaller..."
  • And here: "The Comanche's noise signature is noticeably..."
  • Grammer and punctuation here I think: "The RAH-66 also had its own light armament, it could carry six AGM-114 Hellfire and twelve FIM-92 Stinger missiles, split evenly between the two retractable weapons pylons." Consider rewording to something like: "The RAH-66 also had its own light armament, and could carry six AGM-114 Hellfire and twelve FIM-92 Stinger missiles split evenly between the two retractable weapons pylons."
  • "The Comanche was to be also fitted...", perhaps reword to: "The Comanche was also to be fitted..."
  • "More armament can be accommodated...", perhaps reword to: "More armament could be accommodated..."
  • "The RAH-66 is powered by two LHTEC T800 turboshaft engines...", perhaps reword to "The RAH-66 was powered by two LHTEC T800 turboshaft engines..."
  • "Its fuselage is 43 feet (13 m) long and made of composite material...", perhaps reword to: "Its fuselage was 43 feet (13 m) long and made of composite material..."
  • "The Comanche is smaller and lighter than the AH-64..." → "The Comanche was smaller and lighter than the AH-64..."
  • Missing word here I think: "An effort to reduce the Comanche's empty weight by approximately 200 lb (90.7 kg) or 2.1% to meet target weight was started later in 2000...", perhaps "An effort to reduce the Comanche's empty weight by approximately 200 lb (90.7 kg) or 2.1%to meet its target weight was started later in 2000."
  • Is this a typo or American English? "Fiscale Year", surely it should be "Fiscal Year"?
  • Missing word here: "with the actual equipment for operations"? Consider: "with the actual equipment required for operations..."
  • I'm not certain of what this means: "Additionally, it was difficult to convince the Army that the development program was out of control, with key individuals failing to realize that insurmountable technical problems even existed." Should this be: "Additionally, it was difficult to convince the Army that the development program was under control, with key individuals failing to realize that insurmountable technical problems even existed..."? Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Looks like Sp33dyphil addressed most all of that already. On the control part, it reads as the Army officials could not be convinced there were real problems. So I think the basic wording is OK. -Fnlayson (talk) 02:47, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
      •  Yes All points have been addressed, now. Anotherclown (talk) 04:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Factually accurate and verifiable?

 Checking...

• Well-referenced. Good use of inline citations to support content. Article generally follows sources very closely; no original research found.
• Costs are not entirely clear. The CNN article mentions $6.9Bn - is that a naive count of dollars over time, or did CNN (or their source) adjust for inflation? If the latter, presumably it's in 2004 dollars. Some caution is needed because the value of a dollar has changed a lot between 1983 and 2011. Is the $6.9bn in the infobox accurate, or should the cancellation fees be added to it? Sources like this provide more detail on what it would have cost: "The $38 billion Comanche programme..." - including this could give a more accurate picture of the project.
  • No explanation on the $38B in that source. Eventually that is some projected cost including a full production run. The $6.9B stated in the article is the actual amount spent up to cancellation. I don't see the point of listing some projected cost based on a guess of the number to be built (inflation possibly includes also?) -Fnlayson (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Multiple sources list ~$6.9B as the cost actually spent up to the cancellation. I did add the projected cost for the full 650 aircraft production run ($26.9B) per the CRS report. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• "Stealth" is not boolean. Calling it the "first stealth helicopter" might be slightly misleading, as "it was survivability concerns that ultimately scuppered the Comanche ... unable to hide a helicopter flying over urban rooftops in broad daylight ... struggling to meet some radar cross-section goals ... even the baseline stealth requirements would offer no protection on a modern battlefield". Perhaps rephrase in terms of it being the first helicopter design based around minimising RCS and other emissions (IR, noise) &c.
  • Not sure where all of this is coming from [such as quoted text]. Looks like the sentences after the stealth helicopter touch on this. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The Flightglobal article linked above is marked as an opinion piece. So that can't be used as a detailed reference. Using other sources I added about the Comanche needing upgrades to meet survivability requirements in current environment from Army comments. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comments by Anotherclown
  •  Yes
  • All major points cited using WP:RS.
  • Citation style is consistent.
  • No issues with WP:OR as far as I can see. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Broad in its coverage?

• The article covers all the main areas of the subject that I would expect, and the technical detail is good, but is a little light on nontechnical aspects of the project. An little extra content on the procurement / project management side would be very helpful - after all, there may have been serious problems here and the article comments on how much was spent on a dead-end. I don't think a huge change is needed here - one extra sentence could be enough.
  • I've pulled all the information I could find from reliable sources here, including Jane's. No idea where such program details would come from... -Fnlayson (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I corrected some of the over the top wording about Fred Brooks' book to better match the source text. -Fnlayson (talk) 14:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comments by Anotherclown
  •  Yes
  • I'm not an expert on this topic, however the article seems to cover all major aspects that I could think of. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Neutral?

• Where an expensive project is cancelled, it can be difficult to get completely neutral coverage from the perspective of sunk costs &c. It would be very helpful to add an extra sentence which ties "the harm done by bloated requirements" to the technology wishlist list further up in the article - clearly the design included technologies X, Y, and Z, but was any of these particularly ambitious? (Or maybe there were overly ambitious demands in other areas such as range, reliability, delivery time, or unit cost?). How did the requirements get to be bloated? Was the government or the supplier to blame, or is there no "blame" at all? (This isn't 100% about neutrality; this point has a lot of overlap with the point in the broad-coverage section above)
  • Have not seen anything that places blame in the sources currently used in the article and others. The only "bloated" requirement mention in the Fred Brooks book was the self-deploy ferry range. One source mentioned the requirement for this was decreased some later. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

• I received a request from Fnlayson to conduct research into the cancellation: the results were fascinating. As the numbers to be ordered were halved, and halved again, this (as a basic mathematical principle) shoved the cost per unit upwards many times over what it was as well. In the end, on a cost basis alone, the Comanche was too expensive per unit to come close to the cost per unit the Army wanted. Another major problem that fundamentally destroyed any hope of it being successful was the weight. Key army personal were rallying around a principle that the helicopter should not weight over 7500 lbs, yet the equipment the copter need to be kitted out with to do its job added so much weight, estimately wildly varied; it was even thought likely that the helicopter would weigh over 10,000 lbs with the equipment, at which point it wouldn't even be able to take off as the engines weren't powerful enough! Couple that with the 'hot and high' environment of Afghanistan condemning such poor lift performance further, it was an utter turkey without very serious redesigning. The groundbreaking software didn't even have the confidence of senior figures in the development to be reliable, much of the technology was out of specificiation and immature. Too many things fell short of a usable machine, the cost of rectifying decades of incompetent project management and 'reorganisations' led to eventually even the Army realising that it was going nowhere for so much money involved, and that it would be better spent on more conventional existing pressures rather than pushing the boundries of tech. And finally, UAVs had made some of the Comanche's role pointless. The collosal expense, insurmountable technical issues in a seemingly endless development cycle stymed with problems that were getting nowhere, and not being fundamentally necessary to the procuring organisation led to the helicopter being aborted. Kyteto (talk) 22:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• Otherwise, neutrality is fine. Articles like this don't usually pose neutrality problems.

• Comments by Anotherclown
  •  Yes
  • Article seems to be a fair representation of the topic and I could seen no issues with POV. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Stable?

• ' Yes'. no sign of editwarring or any ongoing content disputes. The history looks like the history of a mature article.

Illustrated, if possible, by images?

• ' Yes'. There are images showing the subject; they have proper copyright tags. Captions provide basic explanations of the images. However, if it is possible to get any different images, that could be helpful to improve the article further beyond GA; perhaps a close-up of some specific part of the helicopter, or a diagram, or one of those CGI images showing the helicopter working as part of a wider network of different high-tech assets (which seem to be a staple of defense-procurement presentations)...

Note: This review needs finishing. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

• Comments by Anotherclown
  • Overall this article looks quite good to me. Some issues above with prose to deal with/discuss, otherwise I believe it meets the GA criteria. Anotherclown (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
    • All done now, so passing review. Anotherclown (talk) 04:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks so much for taking the time to finish this review! -Fnlayson (talk) 15:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)