US Army Awards Griffon Aerospace 5-year Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Contract
The US Army Aviation and Missile Command awarded a production, maintenance, engineering and flight services for the Remotely Piloted Vehicle Target (RPVT) program. Griffon has already manufactured over 2,000 Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) making them one of the highest volume UAV manufacturers in the United States.
(Vocus/PRWEB ) June 16, 2009 -- The US Army Aviation and Missile Command awarded Griffon Aerospace a five year contract for the production, maintenance, engineering and flight services for the Remotely Piloted Vehicle Target (RPVT) program. The contract also provides for aerial target scoring systems and services at Department of Defense (DOD) ranges worldwide.
As the incumbent contractor, Griffon has manufactured over 2,000 unmanned air vehicles (UAV) making them one of the highest volume UAV manufacturers in the United States. The primary air vehicle manufactured by Griffon is the OutlawTM, a 120 lb gross weight air vehicle capable of carrying 30 pounds of payload. The Outlaw™ is used by Air Defense units for qualification training and tactics developers interested in perfecting unmanned aircraft system engagement techniques. The Outlaw™ is also used by a number of weapon system developers as a surrogate unmanned aircraft systems and by the Department of Defense test community to stress developmental weapons systems under test.
Griffon CEO Larry French suggested that “As an incumbent this award has been a validation of our customer’s confidence in Griffon and allows us to continue leveraging our volume production into the growing low cost Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) market.” French added that “Griffon’s flight crews have been flying autopilot Outlaws and payloads for DOD worldwide for several years, which has helped to mature our design and increased our versatility for a number of UAS missions.”
French announced that Griffon recently completed production on a new full featured Unmanned Aerial System called “Boomer”. Our first “Boomers” are being delivered to the Air Force and are equipped with a steerable nose gear, retractable optics ball, video down links, and an Air Traffic Control transponder. According to French, the “Boomer” is an OutlawTM derivative that makes use of mature tooling and an ISO 9001:2008 manufacturing process which helped Griffon to maintain an incredible operational loss rate of 1.2%. French emphasized that “A key component of Griffon’s business strategy is to begin offering a fully autonomous UAV in the 150 pound class for under $50,000.00 and make UAVs affordable for both military and commercial applications.”
Griffon, a Madison Alabama based small business, designs, develops, and manufactures composite structures for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), space applications, and aerial targets.
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