HISTORY 

In 1962 the legendary aircraft designer Jim Bede designed the BD-1 two-seater. It featured  many interchangable parts such as wings, rudder and elevators. It also had folding wings for easy storage, and a sliding canopy.

The BD-1 never entered production, but a company named American Aviation Corporation was formed and they made some re-designing on the model by omitting the folding wings, extending the wingtips to improve rate of-climb and some other improvements.

The aircraft was named AA1 Yankee Clipper and the first aircraft were produced in 1969. It was noted for it’s exceptionally light handling and high cruise-speed. It also featured aluminum honeycomb panels and metal to metal bonding for exceptional strenght, durability and speed. This revolutionary system was also incorporated in all the other aircraft types to follow.

The AA1 was an immidiate succes on the market  but due to it’s sharp stall-characteristics and high approach speed the company re-designed the wing to make the aircraft better for basic traning. This also reduced the cruising speed compared to the original. The aircraft was intended for flying school operations and it was named AA1A Trainer.

Another variant of the Trainer, that was designed for the personal-use market and had a cruise-prop for higher speed, was named AA1B Tr2.

There was also a need for a  4-seater, and the engineers at American Aviation quickly designed it by developing it from the AA1 construction and changing the engine to a Lycoming O320-E2G 150 hp The aircraft also had a  sliding canopy, and the flight characteristics were again superb. It was named AA5 Traveler and the production started in 1972.

In 1973 American Aviation was bought by Grumman, a company famous for it’s naval fighters, Apollo lunar landing modules, and the Gulfstream corporate jet. The company was named Grumman American and  mass production of the 2- and 4-seaters began.

In 1975 the Traveler featured a new nose cowl and main gear fairings and some other aerodynamical improvements.

The big news that year was the introduction of the AA5B Tiger also a four-seater. It had the Lycoming O-360-A4K 180 hp engine and the cruise speed was 139 kts. It was faster than all the other aircraft in it’s class. According to a pilot-report in an aviation magazine it was even faster than a 200hp.Piper Arrow with a constant speed prop.and retractable gear!

The aircraft became very popular and 1323 of them were built.

The AA5 Traveler was also improved again and the result was the AA5A Cheetah that basically was a Tiger with a smaller 150hp engine.Because of it’s large fuel tanks the Cheetah had a 657 nm. range.  

In 1977 the  Grumman American light aircraft line was acquired by Gulfstream Aerospace who named it Gulfstream American. That company  re-designed the AA1B two-seater with a 115hp Lycoming engine and a new tail. Two versions were made, one for flying schools named T-Cat and the other version for private owners was named AA1C Lynx.

A twin-engined aircraft called GA7 Cougar was also produced from 1978-1979. That aircraft was later produced by the French aviation company Socata and it was re-named Tangara.

In 1979 Gulfstream American stopped their light-aircraft production.

In 1990 a new company named American General Aviation Corporation started producing the new updated AG5B Tiger in Greenville Miss. The new Tiger had a 28 volt electrical system and a new central power quadrant, new cowling made of composite and other improvements.Only 181 AG5B Tigers were produced when the company closed it's doors in 1993.

The Tiger has always been a very popular aircraft design, and in 1999 a new company was again formed to put  the Tiger back into production. The Tiger Aircraft LLC commenced production of the AG5B in 2001  at their plant in Martinsburg,West Virginia. The new version has again been modified and has  among other things a G 1000 all-glass flight deck.. The company also holds the type certificates for the 2-seater models. More about The Tiger Aircraft LLC here: http://www.tigeraircraft.com

The name of these great aircraft has always been a small problem because they have been produced by so many different companies. Usually they are all just called ”Grummans”, and that is a name at least all the owners like to use!

The first AA1 Yankees OH-AYA and OH-AYB were registred in Finland in december 1970. All in all 21 Grummans of different types were registred. Most of them are still flying to-day .

The Importers/distributors in Finland were: Teknopiste/Lentopiste and Bee-Air Oy.

 

 

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