Five brothers and a mobile repair shop

Gee Bee simply stood for Granville Brothers. Zantford Granville, known as Granny, ran a mobile aircraft repair service before he and his brothers Thomas, Robert, Mark and Edward set up shop at Springfield Airport in Massachusetts in 1929. They started with nine Model A biplanes, then a line of small Sportster monoplanes. The prototype Model X, flown by Lowell Bayles, came second in the 1930 All-American Flying Derby, a race of about 5,541 miles from Detroit to San Francisco and back. With a staff of around a dozen, the company completed just 25 aircraft in its whole existence.

A flying engine called City of Springfield

The Depression drove the brothers to gamble on racing. In July 1931 they decided to build an aircraft to win that autumn’s Thompson Trophy at the National Air Races in Cleveland. In under five weeks and for less than $5,000 they built the Model Z, City of Springfield: essentially the smallest possible airframe wrapped around a supercharged Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior. It first flew on 22 August 1931, and on 7 September Bayles won the Thompson at 236.24 mph. On 5 December, during a speed record attempt, its right wing failed and Bayles was killed, the crash caught on film that remains some of the best-known footage of the air-racing age.

Doolittle and the R-1

For 1932 the Granvilles produced the R-1 and R-2 Super Sportsters, after three days of wind-tunnel testing at New York University. Their teardrop fuselages were wider than the engine, and the cockpit sat right in front of the fin. Jimmy Doolittle flew the R-1 to victory in the 1932 Thompson Trophy, lapping all but one rival, and set an FAI world landplane speed record of 294.418 mph. In public he praised it; privately he said flying it was like balancing a pencil on a fingertip, and that he did not trust the little monster.

Killers, or just racers?

The reputation stuck. Russell Boardman was killed in the R-1 during the 1933 Bendix race when he stalled taking off from a refuelling stop at Indianapolis. Rebuilt with R-2 wings as the Long Tail racer, it was sold to Cecil Allen, who was killed on take-off in the 1935 Bendix after ignoring a warning from former chief engineer Pete Miller not to fill the rear tank. In February 1934 Zantford Granville himself died in a Model E Sportster, trying to land after an engine failure while avoiding people on the runway. The brothers’ Model YW Senior Sportster, flown by Maude Tait, won more races and prize money than any other Gee Bee.

Bankruptcy, and a second life in Hollywood

The company went bankrupt in 1934, its remaining assets sold at a sheriff’s auction, and the business was succeeded by Granville, Miller & De Lackner. Its last design, the R-6H Q.E.D., was built for the 1934 MacRobertson race to Australia and later, as Conquistador del Cielo, set a Mexico City to Washington record; it survives in Ciudad Lerdo, Mexico. The Gee Bee became a legend: a Model Z reproduction starred in Disney’s 1991 film The Rocketeer, and replica R-1s are displayed in Springfield, Cleveland, San Diego and at the New England Air Museum.

Factories

• Springfield Airport · Springfield, Massachusetts — The company’s only works; the airport has since been abandoned

People

• Zantford “Granny” Granville · co-founder and designer — Killed in a Model E Sportster, February 1934
• Howell “Pete” Miller · assistant chief engineer, later chief engineer
• Lowell Bayles · racing pilot — Won the 1931 Thompson Trophy; killed in the Model Z
• Jimmy Doolittle · racing pilot — Won the 1932 Thompson Trophy in the R-1
• Maude Tait · racing pilot — Won the 1931 Aerol Trophy in the Model YW
• Russell Boardman · racing pilot — Killed in the R-1, 1933 Bendix race

Records and firsts

• FAI world landplane speed record of 294.418 mph, Jimmy Doolittle in the R-1, 1932
• Thompson Trophy winners in 1931 (Model Z) and 1932 (R-1)
• Model YW: women’s closed-course speed record by Maude Tait, 1931