Mission
What has to be flown, over what, how often, in what weather, carrying what. We write it down and read it back to you before proposing anything.
How we work
From a stated problem to an aircraft that flies it
Design, assembly, testing and the support that comes afterwards — plus who we are and what we will not take on. Everything here describes practice, not accreditation.
LEGAL ENTITY
ForgeGravity Aero is the unmanned aircraft division of FORGEGRAVITY LLC, a company registered in California and operating from Los Angeles. Contracts, invoicing and project documentation are issued in the name of FORGEGRAVITY LLC.
The build
Five waypoints, in order
Each closes before the next opens. The point is not ceremony — it is that a problem found at waypoint two costs a drawing, and the same problem found at waypoint four costs an airframe.
Layout
Airframe geometry, lift architecture, power system and payload mounting drawn and reviewed. Changing a drawing is cheap. Changing a flying machine is not.
Build
Assembly in our own shop. Every component, batch and revision is logged against the serial as it goes on, not reconstructed later.
Test
Bench, tethered, then progressive flight testing against the mission profile — including the conditions you said you would fly in.
Handover
Operator training, spares package, documentation, and a service route that does not close the day the invoice clears.
Design discipline
Decisions we make the same way every time
Not rules for their own sake. Each one exists because ignoring it has cost somebody an aircraft.
Margin is designed in, not discovered
Lift, structure and power are sized above the stated mission, not at it. An aircraft operating at its limit on a calm day has nothing left for the day that is not calm.
Failure behaviour is chosen
We decide in advance what the aircraft does when a motor, a link or a sensor drops out, and then test that it does it. Undefined failure behaviour is the same as bad failure behaviour.
Serviceable in the field
Standard tools, accessible bays, replaceable arm and leg units, labelled looms. If a repair needs the aircraft shipped back to us, we designed it wrong.
No proprietary lock-in
Off-the-shelf motors, controllers and radios wherever a good one exists. A part you can only buy from us is a liability for you dressed up as a feature.
The payload mount stays open
Sensors change faster than airframes. The mount is generic and documented, so a head you buy in two years fits an aircraft you bought today.
Records follow the serial
Components, revisions and test results are tied to the airframe number. A fault two seasons later has a history to read instead of a guess to make.
Testing
Nothing leaves on a first flight
Testing is the part clients are most tempted to compress and the part we will not compress. An aircraft that has only ever flown once, in good conditions, in our yard, has not been tested — it has been demonstrated.
- Bench checks on power, control and payload integration
- Tethered runs before anything flies free
- Progressive envelope expansion, one variable at a time
- Deliberate failure injection on redundant systems
- Flight against the real mission profile, with payload fitted
- Results written up and handed over with the aircraft
After handover
The part most builders stop caring about
An airframe is a relationship, not a transaction. Things wear, get dropped, and meet trees.
Spares
A starting package sized to what actually breaks, plus a route to resupply that does not depend on one person answering email.
Training
Operator and maintainer sessions on your aircraft, at your site, covering normal handling and what to do when it stops being normal.
Repair
Field-repairable by design. Where a job needs the shop, the build record means we already know what is in your machine.
Revision
Payload swaps, layout changes and upgrades as the work changes. The aircraft should follow the job, not freeze at delivery.
The company
Who you would be working with
A small shop that designs and assembles under one roof, with a deliberate limit on how much it takes on.
How we operate
- Design and assembly in the same building
- The person who scopes it stays on the programme
- Scope, milestones and acceptance written first
- Problems raised the day we find them
- Documentation produced as we build, not after
What you own
- The airframe and its full build record
- Maintenance and operating documentation
- Test results from your programme
- Freedom to service it yourself or elsewhere
- No obligation to come back to us for parts
What we decline
- Defence, weapons carriage and targeting
- Surveillance directed at individuals
- Work we do not have the competence for
- Programmes with no defined mission
- Timelines that would require skipping testing
Regulation
Where our responsibility ends
We design to the airspace and operating rules as they currently stand, and we supply the technical documentation an authorisation application needs. What we do not do is hold your permissions, obtain them on your behalf, or imply that buying an aircraft from us settles a regulatory question.
You are the operator. Airspace class, beyond-visual-line-of-sight authorisation, agricultural application rules and pilot certification sit with you. Any builder who tells you otherwise is either confused or hoping you are.
Where a requirement you have described would not be lawful to fly as stated, we say so at the first conversation rather than building something you cannot legally use.
It depends entirely on how well defined the mission is and whether the payload already exists. A variant of a family we have built before moves quickly; a genuinely new configuration does not. We give a schedule in writing once waypoint one closes, and we would rather give a slow honest one than a fast optimistic one.
Sometimes — payload integration and modification on machines we did not build. We will look at it and tell you honestly whether modifying is sensible or whether you are better off with a purpose-built aircraft. We do not warrant behaviour on a structure we did not design.
You own the aircraft, its build record and its documentation outright. The underlying design approach and our family geometries remain ours. Where a programme produces something genuinely bespoke, we agree ownership in writing before work starts rather than arguing about it afterwards.
Then we tell you, with the data. It is not common, because waypoints one and two exist precisely to catch it early, but it happens. A programme that stops at waypoint two having learned something is a better outcome than one that delivers an aircraft nobody can use.
No. Civil applications only. We decline weapons carriage, targeting and surveillance directed at individuals, regardless of who is asking or what the budget is. If that rules us out for your programme, it rules us out.
FORGEGRAVITY LLC. ForgeGravity Aero is the trading name of the unmanned aircraft division, but contracts, invoicing and project documentation are issued in the name of the company itself.
Next step
Start at waypoint one
Describe the mission. If we are the wrong shop for it, you will hear that at the first conversation rather than at the fourth invoice.