Serendipity strikes again: YouTube knows all about you, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when they recommended a video about the GeeBee replica that Steve Wolf and Delmar Benjamin built. Oh, happy day.
Steve moved to Oregon before he and Delmar started building the GeeBee replica. Delmar had been part of an air-show team before that, flying home-built Pitts Specials with Steve Soper. The team came to an end after Steve had a serious crash. (Steve Wolf and the other Steve had been an air-show team before that).
Steve had a big, new hanger/workshop in Oregon with some key fabrication tools. One of his first projects in Oregon was building wings for a Hughes H-1 Racer replica (the original H-1 was raced by Howard Hughes).
The idea to build a replica of the GeeBee R2 came out of Steve and Delmar’s hanger-flying sessions there. Steve had the shop and know how. Delmar had the commitment and money.
GeeBee R2s (and R1s) were dangerous machines. Steve and Delmar felt using a variable-pitch propeller, not available in the early 1930s, would add the edge they needed to make it a less foolhardy project. Variable speed propellers work well at both low (landing and takeoff) and high speeds.
With that, they proceeded to spend full-time for months drawing up plans, making parts and assembling the airplane. You might think Delmar would have kept in practice flying in the meantime, but he chose to mentally rehearse the first GeeBee flight during the time to construct it, instead. The maiden flight is shown in the Video below.
Below is a video of a complete airshow routine. I’ve seen a few like this at Felts Field in Spokane (where I kept my own plane). Delmar flew the GeeBee on the air-show circuit for several years and then sold it to a flight museum.
More videos for the one or three of you who are interested.
- GeeBee R1 / R2 / Z – 1931/1932 footage – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V_VJblkupE - GeeBees R1 and R2 – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrtmJVi11uo - GeeBee Model R – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee_Bee_Model_R
Steve is still designing and building improved versions of his proprietary biplanes. He is married to a flight instructor, and they both give aerobatic instruction. “The man can fly,” was an observation about Steve in an old article about aerobatics in Sport Aviation. Not bad for a boy who was once an “airport rat”.
Related post: Meet Steve Wolf
One last note: Our class built a flying model of an earlier GeeBee design when I was in the 8th grade at Alpha school. Our teacher bought a kit and put me in charge. No one had ever flown a model, so I designated myself chief pilot. That model had a laminar-flow wing, which made it tricky to fly. After a few crashes and rebuilds, I regressed to less challenging model planes.
Didit.Live 
I really don’t remember the model plane effort in ’45-’46. Lots of fun later with U-Controls and the free-flight.
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We were already building static and rubber band models before then. The engine was gas, not nitro fuel powered — batteries, spark coil, condenser, breaker points and all. It was big too: bigger than the McCoy’s we had later. It also ran fine using a glow-plug and nitro, but I don’t think we ever put it in another model.
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