Airbus has signed a follow-on Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) contract with the U.S. Army to provide spare parts, material and engineering support for the Army’s entire UH-72A and UH-72B Lakota fleet of 482 utility and training helicopters.
The contract includes a six-month base and 4.5 option years, with a potential total value of more than US$1.5 billion. Airbus will provide support across 67 Lakota sites in the U.S. and overseas. This includes National Guard bases in 43 states and Fort Rucker in Alabama, where the UH-72A performs the Army’s Initial Entry Rotary Wing mission (IERW).
The CLS contract with the U.S. Army is the largest helicopter performance-based support contract managed by Airbus worldwide.
The UH-72B is produced at Airbus’ facility in Columbus, Mississippi while logistics are managed from the facility in Dallas, Texas. The workforce supporting these platforms is approximately 40% U.S. military veterans.
The U.S. Army utilises the UH-72A and UH-72B models to perform a variety of missions including the counter drug and southwest border missions for the Army’s National Guard.
