Great post, Jan K. Very appropriate, lots of information, good story.


I wish we'd see more posts like this, in response to the original post - instead of all the bickering between people who are responding to each other.

Good job,
Dave Olson

Thank you for the insight... I have learned much already.
MarkyD

I love the Gee Bee but I would not be going after the Great Planes version for all of the above reasons. It is almost a cartoon character of the Gee Bee and that short fuse creates issues. I have migrated to sailplanes for now, but I know that one day I will get one, but I am going to go the Pacific Models route, they are worth a look.

Hi all Gee Bees huh (Wide Grin) Unfortunately I do have some stick time on a Kyosho but not the great planes ,The one was enough for me .I told the individual when they got the plane what it was going to be like ,but they paid no attention and got it anyway.I heard one description that fits the plane quite well a brick with wings ,very short wings at that .Anyway I do a lot of the new bird test flying at our field ,but I said no to the gee bee ,The man that owned it can fly and I only felt it was fair he be the one to take it to its demise .Well after about 2 hrs of being followed around I said ok I'll fly it ,but if anything happens I wont be held responsible.
Ya know even us with years of stick time screws up sometimes and saying I would fly that plane was a big one !
I taxied it out and rolled it up and down the runway a few times ,made sure the engine was in tune and looked over at my buddy and said ya ready ?He nodded his head and we was off like a heard of worms .
I no sooner gave it some throttle and it shot in the air 10 foot take off maybe .I was all over the stick to get it leveled back out.Tail heavy I was thinking so I got it up to a safe level and trimmed it out ,used all the trim the radio had to make it fly straight and level.Well by now my nerves was getting somewhat under control so I back it off to 1/2 throttle ,to my surprise it started to fall like a Brick So up come the trim factor to make this thing fly right .I'm wondering just whats up here I gave it a little more gas and up it went ,back to about half throttle and it flew level. I'm thinking, is the firewall giving in this or what ?By now the owner was wanting to know how it flew and so forth so I said here you fly it and see for yourself .That lasted a whopping 30secs and he was begging me to take it back .So here again I have this brick up there and i'm wondering if it will land and if so at what speed ?
I get it up about 5 mistakes high and ask the owner if the gears down , he said that the Geebee didn't have retracts ,and I said well not yet ,gimme a few more mins here and we may.So i cut the throttle back to about 1/4 ,i'm thinking so far so good ,WRONG!!!!!!!!!! the thing went into a spin so fast I didn't see it coming there was no warning at all So I gave it a little gas and let go of the sticks ,yeah man that was cool it spins faster ,so I reversed some control in hopes to calm this thing a little ,ok so now were in a sort of flatspin .Honest I did everything a man can think of to stop this plane from spinning full reverse controls, down elevator ,up elevator,full throttle, no throttle nothing worked .so as we stood there with me doing my best to pull the sticks off the radio it went straight in, nose down .
Being as it was a sort of a weird flat spin and by then the engine was shut down,it didn't have all that much speed and upon impact it bounced back in the air maybe 5-6 feet and landed flat on the gear ,Wheres the video cam when ya need it ? Wheel pants and the cowl was in sad shape as well as all the formers in the fuse, but all in all It was still in one piece. I told him I had a extra prop and some CA in my flight box, to my amazement he didnt think that was to funny, it now makes for a nice attraction hanging in my buddys basement . This plane was handfull from the get go,maybe not a fair comparison to all but this pilot will never know, one Geebee was all it took for me .