A carbon-fibre two-seater

LH Aviation was founded in May 2004 by Sébastien Lefebvre at Melun-Villaroche, south-east of Paris, to build ultralight single and two-seat aircraft in carbon fibre. Its product was the LH-10 Ellipse, a tandem two-seater with a glass cockpit, whose first prototype flew in September 2007 at the Avia International Airshow. LH Aviation showed it at Farnborough in 2008 and at the Paris Air Show in 2009, 2011 and 2013.

From trainer to surveillance aircraft

The company saw more future in surveillance than in sport flying. It developed the LH-10 Guardian surveillance version, the military Elfe and the optionally piloted LH-D drone. In October 2011 two surveillance aircraft went to the Benin Air Force, its first operational deliveries. In May 2013 an Ellipse fired a rocket, the first launch from the type, and in December 2014 the French border police deployed it.

The Moroccan dream

In April 2014 LH Aviation set up a Moroccan subsidiary with investor Mohsine Karim-Bennani and announced a factory at Nouaceur, near Casablanca, to build 80 aircraft a year with 300 jobs. The plant was never built and the partnership ended in litigation. The company employed about 50 people in 2015; Lefebvre left in July 2016. It entered receivership in 2018 and judicial liquidation in September 2019, and I-SEE Group bought the assets, rebranding the aircraft IC-10 and IC-D.

Factories

• Melun-Villaroche works · Melun-Villaroche, Seine-et-Marne — Headquarters and production

People

• Sébastien Lefebvre · founder — Left the company July 2016
• Mohsine Karim-Bennani · investor — Partner in the Moroccan subsidiary, 2014