The RAH-66 Comanche helicopter was the first thing I remember being completely excited about once I joined the Army. I grew up with the Airwolf theme music playing often in my house (my father loved the show) and the Comanche was even wilder than the TV show helicopter. For starters, this wasn’t some warmed-over Bell 222 with a bodykit and a bunch of movie magic…the Comanche was the wildest thing I’d ever seen flying up to that point in time. A T-tail helicopter with a FANTAIL rotor system in the rear that could tail-whip like a pissed off cobra was my idea of something badass, nevermind the armament systems this thing was supposed to have. Compared to the OH-58D Kiowa Warriors I worked on, this was like going from a V8 Chevette to a Ferrari on nitrous. Except, just like the Ferrari, this one never happened. After teasing it out for years, the Comanche fell victim to the wonderful world of politics and budgets…and maybe the dreamers who tried to cram just about everything they could into the project.

That being said, the Comanche itself had one thing going for it that everybody in the Army Aviation community really got sick over when the project got canned in 2004: the maneuverability. The Comanche could whip a 180-degree turn in less than five seconds, and could max out at 201 MPH (to compare, the Kiowa Warrior’s ultimate speed was 149 MPH). Both of the two functional prototypes are at the United States Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama if you ever want a close-up look at what could have been in person, but for now, here’s some footage of what the Comanche could actually do in the air: