Grumman American AA-5B Tiger

GO-CSE Grumman American AA-5B Tiger (cn 0979) was built by Gulfstream American Corp in 1979 at their Savannah factory in Georgia. It was imported into the UK as G-BFZR by Cabair at Elstree in November 1979 as part of their training fleet. It was sold to Ireland as EI-BJS in August 1980, but restored to the UK register as G-BFZR in April 2004

It suffered a forced landing shortly after take-off from Oxford airport on 15 October 2004 and was eventually declared an insurance write-off. In March 2008 it was presented to the Ringwood & Fordingbridge Air Training Corps for use as an instructional airframe. Housed in their Fordingbridge HQ, little use was made of the airframe and in 2010 it was acquired by CSE Aviation at Bournemouth Airport.

With its wings removed, a fresh coat of paint and new ‘registration’ of GO-CSE, it was used for publicity purposes by CSE. However in August 2013 the company donated the Tiger to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum where it is appreciated as a hands on exhibit by aspiring young pilots.

The all metal Grumman American AA-5 series was developed from the earlier AA-1 two seater. This had been built from 1968 by American Aviation in their factory at Cuyahoga near Cleveland. The initial AA-5 Traveler was a four seater powered by a 150 hp Lycoming 0-320 engine, going into production in 1972. This was followed by the AA-5A Cheetah with a cleaned up airframe and then in 1975 the AA-5B Tiger with a 180 hp Lycoming 0-360 engine. This gave the Tiger a good turn of speed and performance.

All versions sold in large numbers worldwide. In 1972 American Aviation were taken over by the Grumman Corporation with a change of title to the aircrafts name. As with many American light aircraft manufacturers, there have been many changes of ownership. In September 1978 Grumman American was taken over by Gulfstream Aerospace who were not interested in their light aircraft products, with production coming to an end the following year.

Production restarted in 1990 when the rights to the Tiger were bought by American General Aviation who marketed it as the AG-5B Tiger. Production was slow and only 181 had been built when the firm closed in 1993. The rights were then bought by Tiger Aircraft in 2001 who commenced production once again in their West Virginia factory.

However only 51 had been built when production ended again in the summer of 2006. In all over 3,250 AA-5 versions were built. This was well short of the similar size Cherokee mass produced by Piper Aircraft.