The Nord 1500 Griffon is one of those very rare airplanes that look more like a dashing experiment than a genuine fighter. France was hungry to test the limits of speed and engine technology in the early 1950s, and the Griffon was the vehicle for that hunger. It wasn’t built to fly—it was built to experiment, to see just how far past Mach 2 it could push and how far ramjet technology could be applied to a human vehicle.
The story begins in 1953, when the French government expressed a desire to build two research airplanes. This was part of a broader program to examine more advanced wing types, including delta and swept wings. To acquire the data, Arsenal de l’Aéronautique—subsequently SFECMAS—employed a wooden glider called the Arsenal 1301.
It could be fitted with different wing configurations and small canards, serving as a flying testbed for ideas. These experiments ultimately gave rise to three interceptor programs: the 1400, the 1500, and the ambitious 1910. While the 1400 became the Nord Gerfaut and the 1500 the Griffon, the 1910 never made it past the design stage.
It was the Griffon’s unusual twin-engine configuration that made it unique. It paired a conventional turbojet with a ramjet, an ingenious but complicated solution. The SNECMA Atar 101G turbojet gave the aircraft the power it needed to reach sufficient speed quickly enough to allow the ramjet to take hold.
Ramjets can’t function from a standing start like regular jets—rather, they rely upon high velocity, normally greater than 1,000 km/h, to function. Once ignited, the Griffon’s ramjet, the Nord Stato-Réacteur, was able to take the aircraft to more than Mach 2.
This setup wasn’t just for show—it was a smart solution to a complex issue. Ramjets have no moving parts like compressors and turbines; they just harness the front motion of the aircraft to compress approaching air, which is referred to as ram compression. At high speed, this air flow is adequate to sustain burning. Low speed? Ramjets are nearly worthless unless paired with a second engine. The Griffon cleaned this up by combining the two systems.
The plane itself was sturdy, built to handle the stresses of supersonic flight, but not more than that. Lacking the thermal-resistant materials that we have today, the Griffon suffered intense thermal loads at top speeds. The ramjet was also quirky at middle ranges of speed, where it could be inefficient or flaky. Still, the plane pulled off some incredible stunts. Its first flight was on 20 September 1955, and in 1959, it set a world closed-course speed record at Mach 2.19.
Despite all its achievements, the Griffon was eventually surpassed by simpler, more pragmatic designs. The Dassault Mirage III, a simpler and cheaper interceptor, showed that conventional turbojets could offer the performance without dual-engine sophistication. Two Griffons were indeed built, and the endeavor was eventually scrapped.
The second prototype currently sits in the French Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget, a stone’s throw reminder of an era where experimentation and imagination drove aviation advancement.
The real contribution of the Griffon was in what it had to say. It provided valuable insight into high-speed flight and engine technology that influenced future interceptor design and ramjet-powered missile development. Ramjets eventually found their optimum use in missiles, but the Griffon is a fascinating example of a period in which risk-taking, curiosity, and creativity drove innovation.
Its story illustrates that sometimes the most unconventional ideas have the greatest lasting impact-even if they never become commonplace.