UH-72A Fleet plus 1 Million Flight hours

[chopper2004]

Across the US Army, Army National Guard and US Navy (Naval Test Pilots School) Airbus UH-72A Lakota has surpassed 1 million Flight hours.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2021/10/Airbus-Helicopters-UH-72-Lakota-fleet-surpasses-one-million-flight-hours.html
Over the last decade Ive had pleasure of seeing the Lakota be it aggressor OPFOR based at Hohenfels AAF (Ravens / Falcons) at ILA Berlin 2014 to USNTPS at AIr & Space Expo 2019 at Joint Base Andrews along with VA and MDArmy National Guard

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/attachments/f5e6c72d-dbaa-4a9c-be2f-66287c04d465-jpeg.609430/

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[casper64]

Good piece of kit. Heard they are getting some new, much more capable B models (H145) as well…

https://www.flightglobal.com/helicopters/airbus-delivers-first-uh-72b-lakota-with-shrouded-tail-rotor-to-the-us-army-national-guard/145367.article

[60FltMech]

I have never worked on the UH-72 but everyone in my organization that does says the same things about the maintenance on the aircraft being fairly intense. (The fleet is ~180 aircraft used for primary helicopter training) Of course, if the Army had purchased a more modern variant(FADEC vs VARTOMS is one that sticks out) and contracted the logistics of parts supply differently a lot of these issues would have been taken care of, just looking from the outside.

I notice the US Navy did some things differently for their training Helicopter, the TH-73. They got a FADEC equipped, single engine helicopter with a glass cockpit for around half the price of the UH-72A.

So, those that have experience, which platform do you think is better for what the services are using them for: UH-72A(EC145) or TH-73A(AW119)?

Just curious.

[RMK]

...so the US Army uses a French helicopter and the US Navy uses an Italian helicopter? 'Murica

[RVDT]

Apparently the ANG have received the first of the "B" back in September?

At least some parts might be in common but maybe not that much!


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1124/airbus_613781b79a288_png_21eda165723e707a3a7d414c32d08e28b35 c297c.jpg

[60FltMech]

...so the US Army uses a French helicopter and the US Navy uses an Italian helicopter? 'Murica

Correct, but they are ASSEMBLED here so that’s cool. 🤣

The Air Force has AW139s now as well…

[skadi]

...so the US Army uses a French helicopter ....

It's a BK117, so it's mostly german!

skadi

[casper64]

It's a BK117, so it's mostly german!

skadi

And Japanese! 😃

[RVDT]

And French and American and Israeli and UK and Swiss and ………

[casper64]

And French and American and Israeli and UK and Swiss and ………

That’s where the parts are coming from. But BK stands for Bölkow Kawasaki…. The range of helicopters is designed by the two of them and even on the latest model I think Kawasaki delivers the entire fuselage and main gearbox.