RCU Forums - Chip Hyde Gee Bee R2?

Randy,

I took an extensive look at the Chip Hyde Gee Bee at the WRAM show. I liked the airplane, but ultimately settled for the Great Planes (GP) version. It's been a while since WRAM, but I'll try to recap my likes and dislikes.

Things I liked about the CH Gee Bee:
1. The fuselage is completely built up of balsa and light ply ... very well done and slightly lighter than the fiberglass fuselage of the GP Gee Bee.
2. Covering is expertly applied ... as good as any other high-end ARF manufacturer.

Things I didn't like about the CH Gee Bee:
1. The canopy and the upper portion of the vertical fin are a single piece of molded plastic. This isn't very scale and the white paint didn't quite match the covering. On the GP version, the canopy is the only molded plastic piece and it attaches to the fuselage similar to the full scale version. Also, on the GP version, the vertical fin is an integral part of the molded fiberglass fuselage, as it should be.
2. The wing fillets are molded plastic or fiberglass (can't remember exactly which) and they are glued to the fuselage. It looked fragmented and somewhat cheap. The GP version has the fillets molded into the fuselage ... simply beautiful.
3. At the time of the WRAM show, the assembly manual wasn't complete yet. Not sure if it's as good as the GP manuals. In fact, Chip hadn't flown his yet, so there wasn't a single person that could attest to it's performance or handling.
4. At the time of the WRAM show, they hadn't decided on a dummy radial engine for the airplane. GP includes a really nice molded plastic unit that is very light and includes actual aluminum tubes for the cylinder pushrod tubes. Nice touch. The Planes Plus folks mentioned that a builder could use a light molded plastic one (Williams Brothers maybe?) or a heavier molded unit depending on whether they needed the weight for CofG purposes. I guess you would be able to order either one from them?
5. Robart makes a functional landing gear for the GP version which is worth every penny. No one could tell me if the Robart gear could be used on the CH version. I suspect not.

Well ... that's it in a nutshell. I'm 80% done with my GP Gee Bee and I'm impressed with the quality overall. If you do a search on previous rcuniverse posts, you'll notice that several GP versions have flown successfully and folks seem to be happy with the handling.

Best of luck!
Scott