The Griffon Lionheart is an American single-engined, six-seat

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

designed and produced in kit form for

home building Home construction or residential construction is the process of constructing a house, apartment building, or similar residential building generally referred to as a ' home' when giving consideration to the people who might now or someday reside ...

Griffon Aerospace Griffon Aerospace is an aerospace company located in Madison, Alabama with additional offices located in Fort Bliss, TX. Griffon designs, develops, and operates aerospace systems including manned and unmanned aircraft, UAV ground support systems, ...

of Harvest, Alabama.

Design and development

The Lionheart is based on the Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane of the 1930s; but unlike the steel tube, wood and fabric construction of the Staggerwing it has a

composite structure Composite or compositing may refer to: Materials * Composite material, a material that is made from several different substances ** Metal matrix composite, composed of metal and other parts ** Cermet, a composite of ceramic and metallic materia ...

. The Staggerwing has strut-braced wings but the Lionheart has cantilever wings with a total area about 20% less than the wings of the Staggerwing. It is powered by a 450 hp (336 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial engine with a three-bladed propeller. It has a retractable conventional landing gear with a tailwheel. The enclosed cabin is slightly longer than the Staggerwing's cabin to allow room for the pilot and five passengers, and it has a split airstair access door on the port side. The Lionheart first flew on 27 July 1997 and was first displayed in public at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh a few days later. Five kits were sold by April 1998, and two of the kits were completed by 2001, with another almost complete. As of August 2011, three Lionhearts are registered in the United States, with another example on display in an aviation museum at Tullahoma Regional Airport in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Kits are no longer being produced.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

{{commons category, Griffon Lionheart
Griffon Aerospace

Lionheart N110N
1990s United States civil utility aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Biplanes with negative stagger Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1997