Snapshot
January 12, 2009
Delmar Benjamin stands his Gee Bee on its wingtip at an annual fly-in at Arlington, Washington, in 1994 with Mt. Baker in the background. The brawny airplane was created as a racer in the early 1930s by the five Granville brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts: Zantford, Thomas, Robert, Mark and Edward. It was effectively an 800-horsepower Pratt and Whitney R-1340 radial engine with stubby wings attached, and a cockpit moved all the way back to the base of a tiny tail to give the pilot maximum visibility during tight turns around racing pylons. The teardrop-shaped fuselage acted as an airfoil, somewhat as modern lifting-body designs do, and enabled such pylon turns without loss of altitude. Jimmy Doolittle set a speed record of 296 mph in a Gee Bee 1932, but many pilots died flying the notoriously unstable airplane. Benjamin's Gee Bee is a flying replica, which he has since sold to Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida.
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