Griffon Aerospace is an aerospace and defense company based in Madison, Alabama, USA. Established in 1995 by Larry French, the company was formed to design, develop, and manufacture a manned composite kit aircraft. The design and development began at Larry's home in Harvest, Alabama where he worked designing and developing a composite aircraft formed around the Pratt & Whitney R-985 450 horsepower
radial engine. The staggerwing design pays compliment to the classic Beechcraft 17 Staggerwing. Pre-sales of the Lionheart took place in 1995 and 1996 at the annual Experimental Aircraft Show at Oshkosh. Lionheart's first flight was 28 July 1997 and 48 hours later it flew in to Oshkosh. The aircraft was featured on the cover of the October 1997 Kit Planes Magazine. Enough orders were placed for Larry French to take on Griffon Aerospace as his full time occupation. The company moved into a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) facility at 901 Nick Fitchard in Huntsville. Griffon also gained some investors who provided working capital for the new company. Griffon Display at Oshkosh
In 2002, Griffon began to expand into composite structures for NASA applications through a subcontract with Northrop Grumman for composite cyrogenic tanks. During that same time period, Griffon also began designing a prototype 130 pound gross weight unmanned aircraft eventually designated the MQM-170A Outlaw. In February 2003, Griffon submitted a proposal in response to the US Army AMCOM Remotely Piloted Vehicle Target (RPVT) offering and Griffon was awarded the RPVT contract in August 2003. A few months later Lockheed awarded Griffon a large contract to build a full scale composite Crew Capsule. Griffon Composite Capsule during test
In 2004, the addition of the US Army's new five year RPVT production contract allowed Griffon Aerospace to expand, producing between 50 and 80 Outlaw aircraft per month at one point. Griffon also put together flight crews to fly the unmanned aircraft for the US Army and foreign military customers. As of 2009, Griffon has produced over 2,000 unmanned aircraft and has flown over 55,000 sorties and maintained a 1.2% loss rate. In 2009, Griffon Aerospace won the recompete for the Outlaw MQM-170A. Also in 2009, Griffon was awarded a sole-source contract for the MQM-171A Broadsword a 600 pound gross weight unmanned aircraft. The US Navy also awarded Griffon Aerospace a contract for the manufacture, operation, and maintenance of a modified version of the Outlaw MQM-170A. Griffon was awarded the Northrop Supplier of the Year for 2009 for its advanced composite work on the NASA MLAS program. BroadSword rollout
In April 2010, Griffon Aerospace and US Army officials rolled out their second UAV system, the MQM-171 BroadSword
