It's always the former civilian guys who were Robbie Rangers and went to teach at Rucker/Novosel who want to defend the Lakota.
I just don't get the infatuation with that aircraft as a Primary trainer.
The only things the advanced aircraft instructors ever said they saw better than the 206 students (and they were dual program for about 3 years until all the Lakotas were fielded) was that the Lakota students owned managing upper modes when doing instruments... so big whoop.
Twice the cost for not twice the skill/ability. And Lakota Mx is STILL a problem to this day out there.
Absolute garbage.
And the idea with fielding Lakotas was to replace Huey/Kiowa at the same time (helpful to USAR/NG since they had whole units with them and to give active duty a cheaper airframe to go build time cheaper in when stateside for ash/trash missions or training flights (especially instruments since active duty has so little time/budget to work on instruments)). When they pushed them to replace the 67's it was a mistake from the beginning.