Bell ARH-70 Arapaho

The Bell ARH-70 Arapaho was an American four-blade, single-engine light military helicopter designed for the United States Army's Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program, with a crew of two and optimised for urban combat, to replace the Army's aging OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. The Army began the program after it cancelled the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche in February 2004. The airframe was based on the Bell 407 and was touted as built with off-the-shelf technology. Bell's demonstrator, a modified 407, first flew on 3 June 2005, and a Honeywell HTS900-2 engine was fitted later. Excessive delays and growth in program costs forced the cancellation of the ARH-70 on 16 October 2008, when the Department of Defense failed to certify the program to Congress.