US Army ends Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program

(Reuters) – The U.S. Army said on Thursday it was abandoning its development of a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), a next-generation scout helicopter, after some $2 billion had already been spent on the program.

The Army said that after a “sober assessment of the modern battlefield” it would instead increase investment in unmanned aircraft.

“We are learning from the battlefield – especially in Ukraine – that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed,” Army Chief of Staff General Randy George said in a statement.

The Army began the FARA program in 2018 and two years later picked designs by Textron (NYSE:)’s Bell unit and Sikorsky, a division of Lockheed Martin (NYSE:) Company.

The Army said that in addition to ending development of the FARA helicopter program, it would cease production of the UH-60V version of the Black Hawk.