1. Lakota is Safe
2. • The UH-72A Lakota has flown over 675,000 flight hours and trained over 8,000 Army Aviators as part of the the Initial Early Rotary Wing (IERW) training mission at the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, Fort Novosel.
   • The Lakota is the safest training aircraft in Fort Novosel’s history, with zero fatal mishaps.
3. Lakota is Reliable
   • 5M+: Total flight hours across the U.S. Army, U.S. Army National Guard, and the U.S. Navy.
   • 14,000: The number of hours 24 National Guard Lakota helicopters flew in a 2023 Southwest border rotation over a one-year period. That threshold is near combat deployment numbers for these airframes.
   • The Lakota’s proven performance allows the U.S. Army to fly forty percent more hours, and train forty percent more pilots with forty percent fewer aircraft than its predecessor.
4. Lakota is the U.S. Army’s Third Biggest Fleet
   • There are 479 Lakota Helicopters in service across the U.S. Army today.
   • There are more Lakota helicopters than Chinook Helicopters in the Army’s Fleet, and 479 represents nearly 75 percent of the size of the Apache fleet.
   • The UH-72 has the second lowest helicopter reimbursable rate across DoD.
5. Lakota is Effective
   • 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.
   • The IERW Program of Instruction (POI) has previously allocated 8 hours to achieve hovering to standard; Students training on UH-72 achieve that standard in 2 hours.
   • Lakota has the lowest NMCS across the U.S. Army fleet.
6. Lakota is worth the investment
   • The Army has invested $4B+ in Lakota since 2006, leading to over 480 on-time deliveries in support of different U.S. Army missions.
   • The Lakota’s mission capabilities are as varied as its operating locations (49 U.S. states and territories), and include training, search and rescue, reconnaissance, medical evacuation, disaster response, homeland defense, drug interdiction, command and control and VIP transport.
   • The Lakota is made in Columbus, Mississippi by a workforce made up of 35% veterans.

Simply put, no other training aircraft in the Army fleet provides the same level of affordability, flexibility and reliability and a seamless transition to advanced aircraft.