US Army orders 35 additional UH-72A helicopters.

The US Army ordered 35 more UH-72A Lakota multirole choppers from Airbus Helicopters Inc. worth US$273 mn, the US DoD announced yesterday on its website.

A U.S. Army UH-72A Lakota with Detachment 1, Alpha Company, 1-244, Aviation Security and Support Battalion, D.C. National Guard, lands at the D.C National Guard Armory, Washington D.C., January 19, 2017
(Credit: US National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Patrick P. Evenson, JTF-DC)

The helicopters, which will add to the 400+ already delivered, are scheduled to be delivered by 8 March 2021. The US Army in January 2018 announced it was looking to procure more helicopters to its Lakota program. 

The UH-72A Lakota is a variant of the EC145 multimission helicopter and designed for homeland security, passenger transportation, logistics, drug interdiction and medical evacuation missions.

The UH-72A was competitively selected in 2006 for a broad range of active Army and Army National Guard missions, including training, search and rescue, medical evacuation, border security, command and control, VIP transport and general utility.

The US Army has contracted for 423 Lakotas, including those for the Naval Test Pilot School and the Royal Thai Army.

The UH-72A is one of just four helicopter models the Army will operate for the foreseeable future. The Lakota platform is a highly capable, commercial-off-the-shelf twin-engine aircraft with modern glass-cockpit, flight control, and navigation systems. The Lakota is the Army’s lowest cost twin-engine helicopter to buy, own and operate, and has a mission availability rate of more than 90 percent.