Planes and Choppers Photos

Grob Aerospace was a German aircraft manufacturer, founded in 1971 by Dr Burkhart Grob, son of Ernst Grob, who had started producing internal combustion engines in 1926 and later made other parts for the automobile industry. Grob Aerospace became involved in glider manufacture in 1971 when it was sub-contracted by Schempp-Hirth to build the Standard Cirrus under licence. 200 Standard Cirruses were built by Grob at its own Tussenhausen-Mattsies airfield between 1971 and 1975. In 1974 Grob decided to continue with glider production independently using its experience with fibre-composite construction. Instead of building competitive gliders, they decided to build for the club market at competitive prices. The result was the G-102 Astir. The two-seat G 103 Twin Astir followed shortly after. Other gliders followed, but glider production ceased in 1996 and production concentrated on powered aircraft. In 2008, Grob Aerospace filed for insolvency, suspending their own light-jet production and calling into question timely delivery of Bombardier Aerospace's Learjet 85 prototypes which Grob was contracted to build. In January 2009 H3 Aerospace bought the training aircraft and support business of Grob Aerospace and renamed it Grob Aircraft AG. The training aircraft production, which had been halted in November 2008, was restarted in February 2009.