Military Training
Airbus has been the U.S. Army’s training partner at the Aviation School since 2006. Student Pilots complete their Initial rotary wing flight training in the UH-72A Lakota at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Future rotary-wing military pilots learn instrument procedures, basic warfighter skills, and emergency procedure training in the Lakota to gain instrument and a certified helicopter rating. The Army Aviation School trains nearly 1500 pilots per year in the Lakota. To date, the Lakota fleet has accumulated nearly 600,000 flight hours.
The Army’s Combat Training Centers also employ UH-72A support aircraft as a part of its realistic threat training locations for combined arms training scenarios. The Army rotates more than 140,000 soldiers annually through its Combat Training Centers (CTCs). These centers are the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif; the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana and the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels, Germany provides leaders at all levels to hone the skills necessary to fight and win on the battlefield, while enhancing mission readiness in individual and collective training in preparation for war.
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.
The U.S. Army’s UH-72A Lakota helicopters fly past New York City’s Statue Of Liberty in November 2018. The Lakota is produced by Airbus Helicopters at its facility in Columbus, Mississippi. It is the U.S. version of the H145M for the U.S. Army, with more than 430 having been delivered on time, on quality and on cost.
