Aero-TV At AUVSI 2022: Griffon Aerospace eVTOL | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-04.21.25

Airborne-NextGen-04.22.25

AirborneUnlimited-04.23.25

Airborne-FltTraining-04.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-04.25.25

Mon, Jun 06, 2022

Aero-TV At AUVSI 2022: Griffon Aerospace eVTOL

Evolution & Future Direction Of Griffon Aerospace’s eVTOL

Mr. Larry French, CTO of Griffon Aerospace shared that they’ve been in business obviously since the mid-1990s when they produced the Lionheart kit planes, which declined in the late 1990s to early 2000s. They then bid as a prime contractor to be the Army’s Air Defense Training Contractor, and they are now a prime contractor for the United States Army, building training drones.

The ‘Stingers’ being shot over in Ukraine and around the world are actually Griffon aerospace targets and pilots. We [Griffon] are training those guys how to use Stinger missiles and MANPADS so our primary revenue stream is from the US Army and the Marine Corps. Griffon manufactures about 45 airplanes a month, and it is the genesis of many years of his love of making things that fly.

"Griffons’ aircraft have always been dependent upon runways or launchers and they’ve learned that, for being able to be expeditionary, and move, and operate wherever we want, VTOL is the future of unmanned aircraft” said Mr. French who went on to say “particularly where you drop an airplane, and drop soldiers under remote locations… and then the other thing that drove this design is that I wanted long endurance, and the equations for endurance aspect ratio….is long skinny wings. We all know long skinny wings, as you see in sail plane… if you want to fly efficiently…and low drag, you need to have long skinny wings, so that has been rumbling around in my brain as far as what configuration can we do…VTOL and tilt-rotors, yet have long skinny wings is what evolved then towards this aircraft”.

Mr. French commented that “it has large rotors in the front, small rotors in the back, and we were able to have the highest aspect-ratio efficient wing design, like a sailplane, and V tail. The large props in front carry 70% of the hover thrust, and the back carries the other 30%. Those rotors are tilting front and rear, all four quad tilts, and once it goes from hover to forward conversion, it takes about 45 seconds for us to go up 80 feet, convert, and go to forward flight. As soon as we go to 45 knots or so, we break the front electric motors, the props fold [backward], so the aircraft is optimized towards cruise, but yet, it’s a VTOL aircraft.”

For less than 0.5% of the mission, it needs 34 horsepower to hover. That energy comes from stored batteries in the front but, after it converts, there’s a generator and gas heavy field generator back, in the aft fuselage that produces electricity for forward flight. In hover it takes about 34hp in forward flight, in hover it takes about 3hp, so the generator is sized for forward flight to maximize endurance. They consider it a synergistic design; big blades for hover 70%, do the conversion, stop and fold the front blades, and then we fly off the back motors.

Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN's Aero-TV has produced over 5000 aviation and feature programs, including nearly 2000 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, currently hosted by Holland Lee. Now in its third decade of operation, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published nearly a half-million news and feature stories since its inception -- having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.

©2022 Aero-News Network, Inc., ALL Rights Reserved

FMI: https://griffonaerospace.com, www.aero-news.net, https://youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, www.airbornetv.net

 


Advertisement

More News

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (04.24.25)

"This enables all parts of the digital portfolio to focus on their strengths. Our commitment to meeting our customers' needs is unwavering as we move forward with our core products>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (04.24.25)

Aero Linx: National Aeronca Association We are dedicated to supporting the design and preserving the history of Aeronca aircraft. Founded by Jim Thompson and fostered by his leader>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Cessna 180

Pilot’s Failure To Maintain Clearance From The Water During A Low Pass Over A Lake Analysis: The pilot reported that he descended to make a low pass over Pettit Lake. He note>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (04.24.25): Downburst

Downburst A strong downdraft which induces an outburst of damaging winds on or near the ground. Damaging winds, either straight or curved, are highly PCG D−3 Pilot/Controller>[...]

Airborne-Flight Training 04.24.25: GA Refocused, Seminole/Epic, WestJet v TFWP

Also: Cal Poly Aviation Club, $$un Country, Arkansas Aviation Academy, Teamsters Local 2118 In response to two recent general aviation accidents that made national headlines, more >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC