I have had my eye on the GeeBee Racer from Great Planes since I first got into this hobby. Now I'm getting one for a graduation gift complete with new engine and radio. I really don't want to ever mess this one up so I want to get a much cheaper plane that fly's the same as the Gee Bee so I can get used to it that way.

I have had 80+ flights with a trainer (the same one), and 15 or so flights with a U.S. aircore F-16. Going from the trainer to a jet wasn't the best step to take, as my first few flights showed, I want to make sure the GeeBee doesn't go through the same abuse.

Does anyone that has flown a GeeBee racer have any recomendations for a cheaper plane (I already have engine and radio) that fly's close to the same way that I can get used to before attempting the GeeBee?

Honestly I can't think of ANY ARF plane that approaches the high wing loading and short coupling that this version Gee Bee has. You've picked a hard road making this your 4 plane... this plane IMHO would be better suited to someone thats been in the hobby a few years and wants a good challenge. My advice would be built it, hang it, and get a BUNCH more flying time under your belt. I've seen this plane put a frown on too many Pilot's faces that have been the hobby for YEARS... most were due to bad dead stick landings... this plane floats just a bit WORSE that a brick a few were just plain bad landing approaches... take a look at the review video's of this plane... you'll see what i'm talking about


http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=351


Good Luck

John

You took a very wierd road down the learning curve. Trainer -> Jet-> ?? -> GeeBee. The Geebeeis a beautiful plane and i cant agree more with what you are looking at. I think you should tak it back to step two. After the trainer get a mid wing or low wing plane like an easy sport (i have it an love it) or a 4*. After that, you better ask your clubmates. I have a member who as a geebee and it doesnt fly too friendly. If you have a simulator then you might be fine. Id still try to get some hands on experience . I really cant think of an arf that has the same flying characteristics of a geebee but with a lower price tag. You should pm somebody with a geebee here on rcuniverse.com Go to the gallery search geebee and thee should be a member with one. PM him and ask your question to him.

I tend to agree with the others. A Gee Bee is NOT a good flying plane - period. It was designed to take the biggest engine available (at the time) and put it in the smallest airframe possible. People who fly Gee Bees are people who have a love afair with Gee Bees.

I would suggest that you tell whoever is buying you this "gift" that you'd rather have a (Put your favorite plane here)

Just to reinforce what everybody else has said, this is not a great plane unless you have a lot of flying experience. As Minnflyer said, Geebee's were designed for one thing and one thing only-- going as fast as possible. They were designed for racing, so the designers didn't worry too much about the way the plane handled since it only had to turn to go around pylons. They are a handful for even a very experienced pilot. I would get a lot more stick time before moving up to this plane. And even when you do move up to it you might want to try and find somebody that has flown one before to take you up on the buddy box until you feel comfortable flying this plane.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But if you fly this plane before you are ready it's a pretty good bet that the plane will be re-kitted.

Ken

Your third plane should be an air-ambulance chopper. Seems about right, considering the degree of difficulty in learning to fly it, & the fact that it will be put to use on the GeeBee maiden flight.

I think Chip Hyde was going to sell an ARF Gee Bee last year. But after the test flight, he decided against it. There might be 5 people in the world that are as talented as Chip, but I doubt they would try to fly one for their fourth airplane.

Have any of you that have told him not to go for the GeeBee flown one personally?? I also love the GeeBee and have read several reviews, and no I have never flown it personally. But most all of the reviews have said that even though it is for advanced fliers, that on low rates it is surprisingly docile. Their biggest complaints seem to be on dead sticks. Here are a few quotes from a review by RCU's own Henry Korczak.

"it isn't a floater. It is however well mannered during slow flight. Control response is good and not aggressive. Again surprisingly, stalls are not what you expect as my Gee Bee would stall by dropping a wing and its nose. I'm sure it could snap if the CG was aft of where recommended. The main thing to keep in mind with the Gee Bee is to not let it fly too slowly as it slows quickly due to its large frontal area. It would be wise to trim the throttle a little high. There's nothing to be afraid of here."

"High Speed Flight and Aerobatics
Here's where the Gee Bee really comes to life! At full throttle, the O.S. 1.20 hauls the plane around at a fast clip and is faster than I thought it would be. No trim changes were noted between slow and high-speed flight, this means Great Planes did a great job building a true model. It was time to turn this beauty loose! First off, can you say graceful? The Gee Bee does all aerobatics is a stately manner that's fitting for this type of model. Make no mistake, it's not an Extra 300 or Cap 232, nor does it claim to be, but it will do any maneuver you ask of it."

"
The Great Planes Gee Bee is a spectacular model! Its flight characteristics could be considered docile and not at all what you would expect. In fact for my liking, I thought the recommended control throws were a little soft. But not by much"

With all that in mind I say go for it, I don't think you'll have any problems.

A friend of mine that has flownfor 20 + years, including TURBINE JETS owned two Gee Bees. The first one, a 1/4 scale lasted 5 flights. All but 1 landing resulted in some sort of damage to the plane. 2nd one, an Adrian Page, lasted 3 minutes in it's first flight. This guy loves Gee Bees, so I know he will rebuild the second one. 4th plane? Man, you are probably walking the road to heart break and dissapointment.

I've been flying for 3+ years now, have 13 or 14 planes. I have burned 10 + gallons of fuel every summer for those 3 years. This equals a lot of stick time. This summer was the first time on the sticks of a Byron's CAP 21 (a trainer compared to a Gee BEE). Makes me poo my drawers everytime I fly it.

My advice? Build it, and hang her up. When you get to the point in this hobby where you are actually BORED with flying, that's the time to take the Gee Bee up. Good luck!

Coolbean, a reviewers use of the word "docile" is very subjective. Docile compared to what? If the reviewer was expecting the plane to be barely controlable, but it then ended up somewhat flyable, it's easy to see why he might call it "docile". A review of the same plane, but written by someone with little experince, might be entirely different. When reading such reviews it's important to consider the experience level of the reviewer. If he has years of experience flying lots of different kinds of planes, he has acquired the necessary experience to know what to do if something isn't right. He will also instinctively avoid doing the things that he knows will lead to trouble. It would be very difficult for a person who has only flown 3 other planes to have this kind of experience. While it's possible that the OP might be successful, it seems that the concensus it's better to save a plane such as this for when one has more experience.

Insert long disapointed sigh here.

Well I guess I'll be looking at it hanging from the ceiling for a while. But I guess its the safest route to take.

runnoahrun, the sigh of disapointment you have now, is nothing to the gut wrenching kick in the crotch feeling you would have after stuffing in your beautiful Gee Bee. Allow yourself to grow in the hobby, and work up to this advanced plane. The guys who stick to going about this hobby the right way, are the guys that will still be flying 50 years from now.

Give it time, and it'll fall into place.

Honestly think that's the best thing to do mate.

There is nothing that can train you to fly a Gee Bee for less than a Gee Bee. Maybe an F-104???

Not meaning to be funny, but as already stated the plane is a racer. It has an extremely low aspect ratio wing and is as short coupled as planes get. Compared to your trainer (and I expect your jet is a light weight foamy type thing?? Please correct me if I'm wrong) with it's extremely low wing loading and near impeccable manners, this Gee Bee you're hoping to fly will be saw dust in next to no time.

Get yourself a kit and learn how to build. You'll need the experience and understanding of working with different materials etc for when you do fly the Gee Bee. As stated before it's an aeroplane (airplane to you Americans) that you should expect to be damaged frequently. This way you wont be disappointed. If you take it home one day undamaged, great! You will find the experience of building very useful though.

Why not get yourself a decent low wing sport model kit for plane number 3? Not sure what's popular in the US at the moment, but I hear good things about the Sig 4 Star. For plane 4 may I suggest getting a warbird kit. Somthing like the Top Flite P47 .60 which is straight forward enough to fly having had sport model experience, but it's got a fairly meaty wing loading which will be noticably different to a sport model, yet manageable. Something along these lines is a good step towards successfully flying the Gee Bee.

Congrats on you success with the trainer so far, you've obviously got potential and wont struggle with sports and warbird types if progressed in the right manner, but I gauruntee that even your trainer will have a number of tricks up it's sleeve you wont have 'suffered' yet, and it's all these little events that hopefully dont cause a crash, but at least grab your attention now and then, that constitude experience with these things.

What I trying to say is that the Gee Bee will bite your head off in an instant, so to fly one successfully you really do have to be able to teach it who's boss.

I'm not sure it' a pretty plane, but it certainly has a lot of charisma and a certain presence about it that draws people. Maybe that's partly due to the planes infamy, deserved or otherwise.

We'd all hate for you to fly this plane and wreck it, as most of us know how much losing a prized model hurts!

Can't stress enough the value of being a competant builder though, it gives an understanding and insight that lifetime ARF'ers just dont get.

If ur looking for a good low wing airplane once to get more experience l, i would strongly recommend the Super Sportster by Great Planes. excellent plane! Handles to the slightest touch, Very speedy plane, lands fast, tail drager, and its fun to fly. MY favorite patter is flew parralel to run way at end pull up gain alltitude then roll over and do a normal split s! the plane then rockets along the runway. fun to do. it flys great inverted also. i think ive got it below 4 feet from ground inverted many times without worry! smooth in the windiest of weather. Out of our 8 planes i am most confident with this one. For me its my Sunday flier!

P.S anyone that has this plane, they can take a beating but check it every once and a while. i do 100mph dives with mine (brother-in-law has radar gun) after about 2 years the tail only cracked where the vertical and horizontal stabilizers connected, and the wings pulled apart a little! :-) im surprised thats all! Excellent plane! any questions on it let me know!

runnoahrun,

I have flow a number of GeeBee R models, including the ARF versions recently available. From my own experience and from everyone else with one that I have observed, they all have one thing in common. Over my 30 years of model flying they are consistently the most troublesome. If you want a cheep practice plane to learn GeeBee flying with, find a used GeeBee that someone is selling for a cheep price. Simple as that.

Multiflyer

I would go find a cap 232 with high wing loading, or a great planes viper. The big thing about the Gee Bee is it has to be flown all the way to the ground. If you try to float it in the plane is going to stall then crash. Also a flight simulator would be a big help.

Hello; Piper Chuck brings up some very good points, about being intuitive enough to prevent problems, rather then reacting to problems. I guess I take it for granted as I don't see the Gee Bee as such a big challenge. Mine is a good flyer, but it would be a big repair job if I screw up. I guess that when you become intuitive enough that you are preventing problems then you have enough experience to attempt any challenge.

My plane (and avatar) is a scratch built Page R2 with a saito 91. It was a tough build, but very satisfying. I have seen a few GP ARFs Gee Bee's they seem a little heavy, but the owners all say that they fly just fine. They are THE attention getter in the pits.

Dont let the negativity get you down. I would do it! Build and Fly, thats how you will learn. You cant be afraid.
MarkyD

There was this cat at the field one day. We were chatting. He asked how long I had been flying. I told him about 27 years now. He had been flying for just a couple. He too was looking for something new and exciting. This was my advise.

If you buy just enough plane to make you happy, then it will last and you will master it. Small steps allow you to always have something to look forward to. Those guys that jump into the hooby and fly a couple of planes and then buy a turbine ,tend to go through hobby , proclaim they have conquuered it and leave in just a few years. Its not a race. Its like saying, " I fell in love, got married, had children and then got divorced". Gee, you are good.

Take your time. That Gee Bee ain't going nowhere. Save something for when you have some experience and really need a challenge. If you wait, you will enjoy it more (later).

It's not negativity, it's selecting realistic goals. What's going to make a person feel better, choosing a realistic goal and reaching it, or an unrealistic one and failing? I agree with PilotFighter. It's better to learn in small steps than taking on something that's beyond you and crashing it. I know people with huge amounts of experience who have tried, and failed, with GeeBees. I know others who have had them and decided they were just too much work.


Edit: I'm a bit curious why someone who's new to planes (per one of your other posts) and new to RCU would choose to make his first 3 posts on GeeBee threads. It's almost like you came here looking for these threads.

Wow....I LOVE the GeeBee....I want a GeeBee Z so bad I can taste it. I know how you feel, nunnoahrun, I dont' like to wait to get to the planes I want to fly either. There are some great suggestions here on how to progress. In my case I saw a used "Ike" which is the same era of the GeeBee and a racer from the '30s, I had one of our experienced flyers at my local club take it up. The flight was hair raising to say the least, he managed to get the plane down in one piece, but threw his hands up and said "i'm done with that!", talking to him further, he said that the faster it went the better it flew, but, it flew like a brick and was extremely difficult to land. So, I put that bird away for a while and it's a great conversation piece(I sometimes bring it to the field and set it up) it gets a LOT of attention at our field. It's my "goal" for when I get to be a better flyer.
I'd say buy it, build it, bring it to the field and set it up......but don't fly it. I don't know what kind of plane to recommend to you to fly to simulate the GeeBee, but listen to some of the folks here, and make your own decision(because you will anyway). I went from a trainer to a "sport" warbird and the thing that threw me was the speed difference(take off and landing), the more sensitive controls and a number of techniques for just the basics of flying a taildragger that you really don't appreciate till you actually try it. If you haven't flown a low wing taildragger yet, do it....I think that will tell you where you are with your flying skill and will definitely give you a wake-up call, it did for me.
Good Luck!
Cheers!
Mazer

My intentions were not to ruffle any feathers...I apologize. I am newer to RC and have been bitten by the Gee Bee bug! I have seeked out the forums on the Gee Bee. I want one also. I just feel at this point... if you can learn by flying this plane, that is how your going to gain the experience to master it. I agree that you should take the steps to become as experienced in flying as much as possible. But you cannot master something with a totally diffrent plane. I think you need to use the plane you want to fly. It sounded to me the pilot has had much experience with two planes already. If you crash... you can learn much from it than if you never crashed at all. $219.00 for an arf plane doesn't seem to be alot of money. You can order replacement parts. Like I said I do not want to ruffle any feathers. I just want to learn more and share in a hobby with others who share the same passion. MarkyD

Experience with a couple of planes is not going to prepare the OP for what's coming with the Gee Bee. That is what everyone is trying to say. Only time will prepare him for that. 219 dollars may not be a lot of money for you, but it sure is for me and others. 219 dollars for ten seconds of sheer hell is definitely a lot of money!

Using this philosophy then I guess a 747 pilot starts out learning on the airliner itself. The Navy must have all new pilots climb into an F-18 cockpit for their initial flight training. Yes, I am being silly but it does make a point. Full scale pilots learn by "working up" to the planes that they will eventually fly. The same thing is true in the RC world too. A pilot needs to start by learning on a trainer and then advance to more capable planes in order to build up their skill level. Each plane that they fly on the way up will increase the pilots skills so that when they get to their "dream plane" they will have the skills to successfully fly it. I'm not saying that it's impossible to start off in a Geebee, but if a pilot wants to go that route I suggest that they buy plenty of planes of that type because they WILL crash them.

Ken

Hi!
I have been flying R/C for 31 years now and been competing in nearly every aspect of the hobby besides heli's and I too have fallen in love with those charming racers of the thirties. I have read a lot and gathered a lot of information about them from books and magazines through the years and I started building a Henry Haffke GEE BEE R-1 in 1/4 scale in 1985 (not completed...yet). This love for those big GEE BEE racers (and others fast racer airplanes)got me interested in pylon racing in the late seventies. And I started competing in 1980. First it was Quarter Midget powered by .15 and then .21 engines and later Q-500, sport 40 and F3D racers. I even tried importing 1/4 scale pylon racing models from Ohio from a fellow named Quay Barber.But interest for those big scale, Formula 1 racers among Swedish pylon racing competitors was sparse...so I continued competing in F3D and Q-500.
This love for fast flying airplanes have continued since then. Over the years I have constructed many airplanes of my own, both twin, pylonracers and sportmodels, having published many articles in Swedish model magazines.

Two years ago I was very pleased when Great Planes came out with their big GEE BEE R-2 ARF racer (sister model to more famous GEE BEE R-1 flown by Jimmy Doolittle in 1932).
I therefore contacted the Swedish Great Planes distributor and made a deal with him and wrote an article for one of the Swedish airplane model magazines.
Having flown many fast pylonracers before with speeds up to 375km/h and many two engined airplanes both my own constructions and kits and several WW 2 fighters, I thought that I had enough experience to handle even that GEE BEE R-2.
So When I got it together and stood there on the landing strip, ready to take off , I was a bit little nervous.

I had test flown the smaller Kyosho GEE BEE -Z some years earlier for a friend in my club and that plane flew just fine...in the air...if you flew it at full power. But it was a bit hairy to land due to it's high wing loading (he had it powered by a big Saito 1.82 cc twin engine, swinging a 16x8 APC prop...I just shook my head prior to take off....).But I did manage to land it in one piece without stalling it, coming in at nearly full speed.

When I finally dared to take off , the R-2 just lumbered away on the grass strip and after just 30 meters took to the skies. I was relived!
It was so nice in the air, it was responsive and could climb real good though I had it powered only with a 15cc MVVS two stroke engine (14x6 APC)which was well muffled using two separate silencers (custom made).
The R-2 handled every maneuver real nice, inverted flight, knife-edge, stall turns, 4 point rolls, loops you name it..., The GEE BEE R-2 could handle it all . But ...there was a BUT.
Even though I had lightened it so the airplane now only weighted 5000g (Great Planes recommends a weight between 5150-5600g)...it still was a handful to land.
I first noticed this when I tried too fly real slow, high up.
At a certain speed it just snapped...and it began to spin....it took 1.1/2 turn to get it out of that spin but did recover easily when I released all rudders.
I did the test several times...same thing happened every time; snap and spin.
I knew this snap would happen because although I had made it lighter, the airplane was still too heavy for it to behave real good.

I was cautious when I took her in for landing the first time and made a long flat landing run expecting the worst to happen. I felt I didn't have 100% control when speed started to drop off...It felt like balancing a piece of butter in a hot sauce pan.
I managed to bring her in and she set down safe on the ground but I was not satisfied with how she handled. I thought that I just had to learn more about her, by flying here more.
I have since that time flown her about 10 times, but I still regard her as being a real tough girl to handle at landings and don't recommended her for any flier just leaving intermediate level.

What's the conclusion of all this...never fly a GEE BEE R-2 before you have flown for at least 30 years?!
No! Perhaps not. But consider it vital that you have tried at least 7-10 different airplanes and flown at least 3-5 years before you attempt that first GEE BEE flight. It's also good if you have pylon racing experience as you then know how to handle and trim out fast flying airplanes.

As has been said before in this forum about today's world of instant gratification and ARF models .Move slowly and you'll perhaps learn one or two things along the way. Move fast and you risk loosing everything and never find out what this thing; Model-flying is all about.

Regards!
Jan K
Sweden