It was also armed with one rotary cannon and could carry missiles and rockets in internal bays and optionally on stub wings for light attack duties.

As early as the late 1990s, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had reported that it had "serious doubts" about the program, observing that the Comanche would "consume almost two thirds of the whole Aviation budget by Fiscal Year 2008".

On 23 February 2004, the U.S. Army announced the termination of the Comanche program, stating they had determined that the RAH-66 would require numerous upgrades to be viable on the battlefield and that the service would instead direct the bulk of its rotary systems funds to renovating its existing attack, utility, and reconnaissance helicopters.

The Army also announced new plans to accelerate the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which could also perform the scouting role intended for the Comanche, but with less risk.

In December 1994, the Department of Defense reduced the number of planned prototypes to two as the services shifted budgets to pay for increased troop salaries.

[6] On 25 May 1995, the first Comanche prototype was formally rolled out at Sikorsky's production facility, after which it was transferred to West Palm Beach, Florida to commence flight testing activities.

[11] Through the early 2000s, the U.S. Army maintained its plans for the intended purchase of over 1,200 Comanches, which were to fill both the scout helicopter and light attack roles; as late as 2003, it was being anticipated that deliveries of operational RAH-66s would commence as scheduled during 2006.

[20] Over the course of the Comanche's development, multiple government agencies had acted to cut the number of helicopters that were intended to be ordered; one particularly common basis for such curtailments was that the Cold War had ended and thus such quantities were unnecessary (a phenomenon known as the "peace dividend").

In addition, wartime experiences, such as from the Kosovo War, had led to some senior figures within the Army to place a greater emphasis on the use of unmanned platforms for conducting many of the same roles for which the Comanche was being developed to perform.

[22] By 2000, Williams postulates that the primary reason for retaining the program was out of concern for the state of the helicopter industry—Sikorsky's production and employment figures were at their lowest for decades and the contract was considered critical.

[23] Additionally, it has been claimed that it proved difficult to convince the Army that the program suffered from serious troubles while key individuals failed to realize the existence of insurmountable technical problems.

"[27] The manufacturing team, Sikorsky and Boeing, have attributed factors that were outside of their control, such as budget cuts, "requirement creep", and a protracted development period, to have caused problems with the program, rather than dysfunctionality on their part.

Since the termination, both companies have decided to team up again to produce a jointly-developed prototype, designated as the SB-1 Defiant, for the Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program.

The Comanche was specifically tailored to the role of armed scout to replace the U.S. Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, which is an upgraded version of a Vietnam War-era observation helicopter.

The RAH-66's fuselage was 43 feet (13 m) long and composed of composite materials; it was designed to be capable of fitting more readily onto transport ships, enabling the Comanche to be more rapidly deployed to flash points and other rapidly-developing situations.

[4][29] As intended, it would have functioned as a stealth helicopter, incorporating a number of different techniques and technologies in order to reduce its radar cross-section (RCS) along with other areas of visibility and detectability.

[31] The exterior surfaces of the RAH-66 were faceted and covered with both radar-absorbent material (RAM) coatings and infrared-suppressant paint;[1] as a result of these combined measures, the Comanche's RCS was stated to be 360 times smaller than that of the AH-64 Apache.

It was equipped with a single chin-mounted 20 mm three-barrel XM301 rotary cannon, which could be pointed rearwards and retracted under a fairing when not in use to decrease the helicopter's radar cross-section.

[35] Data from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2005–2006,[36] Frawley,[2] Boeing and Sikorsky,[29] Bonds and Miller[33]General characteristics Performance Armament Avionics