UH-72 Lakota

Lakota’s missions are as varied as its operating locations, and include training, light attack, search and rescue, reconnaissance, MEDEVAC, disaster response, homeland defense, drug interdiction, command and control and VIP transport.

The Lakota supports U.S. Army and U.S. Army National Guard units in 49 states and U.S. territories and recently achieved over 1.5 million flight hours across its Army, National Guard and U.S. Navy fleets today.

In 2015 the U.S. Army re-purposed the UH-72A Lakota to support and sustain the Initial Entry Rotary Wing – Training (IERW-T) mission at Fort Novosel. This role ensures all new U.S. Army Aviators receive initial rotary wing training, instrument procedures, warfighter skills, and emergency procedures prior to transitioning to their combat advanced aircraft. A twin-engine aircraft, the Lakota can function in modes that closely represent the flight characteristics of the ‘go-to-war’ advanced aircraft the graduate IERW student will operate.

Since becoming the primary trainer for the U.S. Army Aviation School’s training mission in 2020, the Lakota trains around 1,400 students annually and flies in excess of 125,000 flight hours. To date, the Lakota has trained more than 8,000 students and in this role accumulated over 700,000 flight hours.

The U.S. Army’s Combat Training Centers also employ the UH-72A as observer and controller and opposing force aircraft in support of their realistic combat and threat training scenarios for Joint and Combined Arms Forces. 

The Army rotates more than 140,000 soldiers annually through its Combat Training Centers (CTCs). The CTCs are located at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA; the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, LA and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels, Germany. The CTCs are renowned for providing leaders at all levels effective training and skills to successfully fight and win our Nation’s wars. 

In addition to the Army, the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School operates the UH-72A Lakota as its primary trainer for experimental and developmental flight test training at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Approximately 24 test pilots are trained annually to perform acquisition testing of future aircraft to meet the Navy’s operational needs.