Gee Bee Z - Engine Test, Taxi Run, & Flight - 2020 Archive Compilation
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- We've had a few requests recently about featuring Kermit's Gee Bee Z racer in a clip. Here we reach back a few years to show the last time the Z was being prepped to fly. The clip has three parts . . . an engine test, a taxi run, and ends with some archive footage of Kermit's last flight in the plane. Check it out. Could this posting be a prelude to the Z coming back out to play??? Stay tuned!
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Kermit Weeks
![Yailin La Mas Viral, @kreizyk.official - Dale 2 (Remix) [Video Oficial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JaYHBzgqz94/mqdefault.jpg)
I see so many aircraft and think “man I would love to fly that” then I see this GeeBee and I’m all....nope nope nope
Totally agree...I do not think that beast would be a lot of fun...of course, we could be wrong. Low passes at 260 might get the blood pumping!
"Where's the damned CG?"
"You're SITTING in it."
,,, if this was a car, it would could be called, CCC, for Close Coupled Coupe .
I'm not entirely sure the Gee Bee Z had a CG.
Holy Cow! What a beauty! Gee Bees are like real life cartoon planes. Very very cool. You guys just keep showing awesome stuff. Thank you so much.
Dear Mr. Weeks, please stay healty and be with us for a long long time... THANK YOU for all your works !!! Frank
The engine with a plane attached to it.
@owocek41 Sad I153 and i16 in the background
It seems more likely "an engine with wings on it".....lol.
@@dougscott8161 An engine test stand, "with wings!"
Exactly my first thought!
An engine with wings.
Got to have somewhere to put the fuel
Such magnificence!! Both to the plane and pilot!
Awesome, Thanks for sharing. Looked like a handful to land!
This "Kermit Guy",,, He's Got More "EGO",,, Then All The Members of "The Big Red One",,, Put Together... The Difference Between a "Runaway EGO" and "Kermit's EGO",,, Is That He Can Back Up That "EGO",,, With Talent... Yes,, Yes,,, He Has a "Blessed Life",,, He Knows That... But He Also Willing To Share That Blessed Life With Us,,, The Less Fortunate Souls... He Shares All Of It,,, "The Good",,, "The Bad",,, and "The Ugly",,, He's a Very Courageous and Giving Man,,,
What
I wish you the best! This series is so interesting, from a pilot' view.
I know the real reason Kermit had that seat altered..... you need big ones to fly that little monster!!!😂😂😂
Thank you for sharing with us, great flying history in this Geebee, Jeff in LA USA
Only a aerobatic pilot like Kermit would attempt this plane . excellent flight Kermit. cant wait to see the typhoon flying or tempest . and P38 being restored to flight again
This is one of aviations coolest, but that hanger and airport is making me drool...did you happen to see that PBY in the background. I used to work on corporate jet interiors at Long Beach Airport decade's ago and saw a PBY5A all the time flying around and landing in the harbor. Nothing like prop jobs of yesteryear. Thanks for sharing the Bee Gee.
Sure has big feet for such a small aeroplane. Looked like a nasty yaw when it touched down but Kermit gathered it in stat.
Yeah that was a ton of rudder input
I was hoping it had taken to the sky in the last few days. Too beautiful to let sit collecting dirty dust and not shooting thru stardust.
A modern one yes. But who ever opens up one of those has got balls
Dolittle was one of the few that could control that beast!
Kermit Weeks the Jay Leno of aircraft.
That is not an airplane however that's a museum piece. A boat in Harbor never goes anywhere
@9:47 you can just hear Kermit say thank God for that. I imagine your 'Circumstances' were your Life insurance company or spouse ! Not the safest of planes ! Seriously though I wonder what would have happened if the Thompson Trophy GeeBees had ever raced the Schneider Supermarine S6B with a fixed undercarriage or even the much faster 1931 Macchi with counter rotating props (700 Kph) !
Not the most dangerous of planes either. The crash is now attributed to aileron flutter which was not understood or recognized at the time. Flutter is primarily a result of high speed and lack of sufficient rigidity. Not a fault of the basic design and does not affect handling performance.
Hi Kermit! Absolutely love the Geebee. Thank you for preserving this amazing aircraft. Could you please make a First Person View Onboard video flying this aircraft? I would love to see that. Please and Thank you. lol
At 08:53 you can see just how thin the wing section really is. 8% maybe?
With an equally thin spar.
That alone scares the hell out of me!
Goodspeed, Kermit Weeks!
It does have external bracing.
Is this the model z that was built by Jim Appleby and Ed Marquart? Oh never mind asked the question before the vid was finished.
Tell y'all what,, the full scale gee-bee airplane lands a whole lot better than my 1/5 scale RC model of it do!
Jimmy Doolittle won a race in one of these. The very next pilot rolled the plane into a ball of flame
AE: No. Jimmy Doolittle never raced the Z model. He raced the R model. The next pilot who flew it stalled it on take off during a cross country flight. Not an indication of any fault of the plane, nor of any special flying skill necessary.
Why when he flew low over the field was I waiting for "Watch this Peevey!
that guy on the prop plane during run up has big cojones...
7:40 PLEASE🙏 can someone tell me what’s the huuuuuuge beast behind!!!!!?????
The size of this silver beast terrifies me but also fascinates me!!........ big thanks in advance👍
By the way thanks for this video I love this crazy thicc beauty plane this I’m a young kid, can’t wait to discover your other videos 😊
Big salut from France 🇫🇷
VINZ.🙋♂️
That beast would be my TBM Avenger!
These planes are very UNFORGIVING if flown ham-handed. By the same token, they are spectacular in flight.
Is that a tail wheel or a skid? Such a cool airplane. Thanks for posting this Kermit.
Tail wheel. You can see when we're wheeling it out of the hangar.
Thanks Kermit.Really enjoy these videos.
I would really like to know what improvements have been made compared to the original model to make it (a little) more manageable.
Sounds good guys, good job to all. Be safe. Peace.🇺🇸
The answer to the question “What’s the minimum amount of airplane that can fly the biggest wompin’ radial available?” In the early 1930’s, this was the answer.
Electric start? When did they add that?
Kermit with no gray lol...
Kermit-do you ever fly your Gee Bee Y sportster?Florence Klingensmith's gravesite is about 20 miles from my home,and even though it's in a small country cemetery,the local 4-H group has kept the site up nicely.
Hope to again in the near future.
Was that the same Plane in the Moive the Rocketeer ?????
The Rocketeer plane was based on this, but was actually made slightly larger.
That young lady wrenching on Kermit's planes is beautiful. We need more people period I the technical trades and especially women.
Why do they need to be especially women? Are you a feminazi
77Avadon77 agreed. It should be anyone who is passionate about it. I’m sick of people pushing things strictly based on diversity
The fact that you begin by commenting how beautiful you think this woman is, before saying more women need to be in trades is exactly why women avoid these professions in the first place...
Hello. I'm one of those 'woman' things. I'm not an engineer, or a modern feminist, or an advocate of 'girl power' or 'diversity for all' or any of that media-led garbage.
The world's a complicated place, and it's not always fair, which is possibly why there are so few deaf, blind, paraplegic airline pilots and firemen (sorry - firefighters). Diversity is for focus groups and advertising executives and Disney employees. Out in the real world it's all a load of PC cr*p (pardon my French).
I'm English, white, straight, single. Not important. I've spent a lot of my life doing what's traditionally seen as 'man stuff', surrounded by men. Amongst other things, I'm a bit of a mechanic - although I've not worked on aircraft. (I did get my PPL in a Cessna years ago, but it's now lapsed.)
Anyhoooo, in my experience [and I stress the word MY], sexism and discrimination generally only happens when you go looking for it. I think some people almost WANT to be offended because they've got their own sad little agendas to feed.
But it needn't be like that. True, some people are absolute idiots and will pick on you whatever your background, but they're in a minority and can usually be ignored.
If you're sufficiently passionate about a subject, your fellow nuts won't give two hoots that you've got two hooters.
I did some rally driving in the 1980s during the Group-B era. Sadly, I never got to drive one of the terrifying works monsters because I was just a club driver - strictly amateur - which meant doing all your own repairs either in the makeshift service areas or at the side of the road/ track/ ditch.
I never encountered any problems caused by my gender. Not one. Not once. As long as you knew your subject and were prepared to roll up your sleeves and it was clear why you were there, things were great.
I spent plenty of time in British forests after midnight, crammed under a busted car in 2" of mud and melted snow changing a clutch or bent track-rod end with my (male) co-driver/navigator. Once the other guys saw I was busy, everything was fine. I was just another driver. No biggie.
Maybe I've been lucky; the groups of people I've mixed with haven't been looking for trouble. All I can say is that the old adage, "Treat people the way you'd want to be treated," has always worked for me.
I think the woman mechanic in this video will have made the same choice. She knows her stuff. She loves her work. She gets things done. The end. You can either stand back and moan because you think you're 'special' or you can get stuck in.
The only thing I would be wary of as a woman in a predominantly male environment is trying to compromise on looks and safety. Don't do it. Long hair and loose sleeves are a definite no-no where there are moving belts and pulleys waiting to grab you, drag you in and break your wrist or smash some fingers.
Interestingly, the only really bad accident I ever witnessed directly was in a machine shop. Someone got their hair caught by a lathe and it tore off a strip of scalp. Not fatal but truly horrible and incredibly bloody. And the screams... I can still hear the screams.
The irony is, it was a man.
So please, keep that pony-tail tucked in, Kermit! ;-)
Bad ass is all you can say about the Gee Bee family. Thanks for keeping the right stuff in the human genome.
5:12 hope disney doesn’t get a wind of the character design in the center
FYI, that character was designed, and the book published long before Disney did Planes.
Anyone else think of rocketeer as they watch this?
Remember the Weeks method : all fuel goes in right wing tank only! No fuel for left or center!
That's not something you see everday 👍🤪 Great
The infamous widowmaker
Hi what type of engine was standard for a geebee
Not keen on standing inline with the prop anytime!
Kermit podia protagonizar "biplano" una pelicula basada en el libro de Richard Bach 😁😁😁😁
What were the circumstances that were keeping you from flying? If i had to guess, i would say it's probably just plain scary!
wow,
How can u see forward on that plane
Not too well until you get the tail up. Then it's pretty clear forward.
Whats w the tail wheel ?
"Is the canopy around ?" is such a bizarre question x)
Question related to flying the Gee Bee and high power taildraggers : Two or three points on landing ? and why ?
From flying in flight sims with good flight models (DCS World to be specific), it seems that three points allows for shorter landings and less risk for bouncing, but two points offers control all the way till there's not enough air on the controls and wing.
id imagine it falls out of the sky long before it gets slow enough to set the tail on the ground
From 2012? Why didn't it fly back then?
I just read a book that mentioned pouring water in a glass while flying upside down, sounded like BS at first but I could see how it’s possible. You should try that Kermit (and post the results on RUclips please lol).
Shane K google Bob Hoover pouring water in a glass while doing a barrel roll. You’ll see it being done.
Jim Johnson I just watched it! Pouring ice tea, that was cool.
...It looks really hairy to land, directional control on touchdown....more so than on takeoff?....
WOW! What a plane. Did any one else see the ironic contrast of the Fiessler Storch coming in for a landing as thr crew were wheeling the GeeBeeout on the tarmac for the engine tests? The fastest and the slowest!
Thanks, I didn’t notice the Storch until I looked for it a second time. I like both of these planes.
People: That's a nice Gee Bee
Me: Holy shit was that a Storch in the background landing?
@@JetFire9 0:57 I see a Storch too. What is it?
@@chokini2 I confirm Fi 156 landing, with argus engine it seems. Or a nice replica...
Nice beats on this platform, 6:13 a civil converted Sunderland in the hangar...
I thought so too.
Yea did you see that too? Oh so very cool
Ja
Where oh where is Jennifer Connelly. One of my favorite movies " Rocketeer".
Lol she was an absolute babe in this movie...wait when still is😂
I'm sorry Donald, she doesn't even know you exist.
Yeah, don't know why it got such a bum rap, it was a great movie! And she was as spectacular as always...
"You sneeze and you'll end up upsidown in a bean field"
Upsidown
Nah, great safe plane, designed to race, needs a great pilot like weeks to keep ahead of it.
The tail feathers are just a suggestion.
@@airgliderz Quote from "The Rocketeer"
The prettiest of all the twitchie widow makers in my opinion.
Great description
I fell in love with these beautiful little planes while watching the Rocketeer when I was younger. This example is no different. It looks like something out of a cartoon than real life. What an incredibly beautiful plane. Congratulations.👍👍👍
Go Speed Racer Go! 💨
Two guys that can fly anything, Bob Hoover, Kermit Weeks.
I've been a huge fan of the Gee Bee planes for years! So glad she will be running again! Now if we can get another Hughes H-1 airworthy!
When Kermit says "That's interesting", He means it was a wild ride.
All of a sudden I'm getting flashed from Disney's "Rocketteer" though my head... what a lovely little plane!
Terrance Roff
I only remember Jennifer Connelly in that white dress. ruclips.net/video/uA1hkbPwGM8/видео.html
Just watched that last Friday. There were two planes, or they painted it yellow and white, in the movie. Is this one of those A/C?
alohathaxted Me too!
rileycpo yes it was
@@alohathaxted Jennifer Connelly was my two favorite things about that movie
This is the airplane that scares the Gee Bees out of me! No joke, it really does. Kermit, total respect!
Just don't flight over 220 mph and you'll be fine
@@K-Effect Why not over 220?
yeah hes the greatest .But the plane looks like a russian polikarpov , wonder if there's a connection .
@@siddharthsharma8940 wing flutter will tear the wings off!
My Dad (early Golden Age air racer for Cessna) was offered a seat in a Gee-Bee. Declined, he didn't like the prop wash over the control surfaces.
Memories of seeing the R2 flying (and climbing out) on knife edge
At the DuPage County AirShow
Some 30 years ago...
Requiem!
I cried THEN
And am crying now..
God Bless ALL!
BOTH planes need to be FLOWN!
Regularly
J.C.
Age 74 years young!
Born in Ybor City, Tampa FL.
1949
Hung out some weekends at our Vandenberg Airport
Eurika Springs, US-92 & US-301
From 35rd grade to my early 20's
Semper Fi
I want to be Kermit when I grow up .. I'll be 58 this year, but still hoping ;)
Well, there's still plenty of time to be the best Alan you can be. Follow your dreams!
@@KermitWeeks444, so true. I'm only 63 and will want to come out of retirement to work at FofF when Act III opens. My kids are old enough to take care of themselves. I have a 12 year old who loves aviation and engineering. I'm getting him into Civil Air Patrol, very shortly. Hopefully, he can get started a LOT sooner than I did.
I've just started to learn to fly at 54, never too old 😊
@@KermitWeeks444 Thank you Sir for your words of encouragement !
Lol that Storch just gently floating to the ground! Love how these engines start on like 3 cylinders and slowly the rest wake up till the thing finds it's full roar.
Then you hear the air getting abused as he rolls on the prop pitch.
Truly a monster motor with the minimum wings and tail bolted on.
I had a model of this plane as a child (I built many models, mostly flying; I'm about Kermit's age and also a pilot). It always scared me, just to look at it! I wouldn't try to fly one. But very cool to see.
Seeing Andy makes me wonder how he's doing now.
He's doing well. Enjoying his time . . . working on his vintage motorcycle.
I was wondering too. Thanks for letting us know Kermit.
Reuben Sandw ich
That thing is terrifying-the touchiness of the controls, the nose heaviness, the close proximity of the engine to the pilot, how high the nose angle is on taxi, the fact that from the second those wheels hit the runway you’re only a twitch away from fishtailing, nosing over or groundlooping
535 h.p. and a short fuselage concept. If you double the engine power with same concept you get I-16
I have been a pilot for 30+ years , many different air craft. These airplanes are cool and General Doolittle made her sing in the sky, however this little beast would scare the hell out of me . Safe flights Kermit
That thing just looks and sounds p!ssed off and mean just daring you to mess with it.
Its a lot like a Starfighter. It doesn't even look like it would fly, it's all engine and no b.s. and it'll flat-out smoke any "comparable" contemporary aircraft and a lot of much newer ones.
I love it.
And we now know - after flutter tests - aeronautical engineer Leon Tolve stated that anything above 230 knots IAS was getting into scary territory....260?? Yeesh !!
I loved that video… loved listening to that Gentleman talk. Leon was part of that Generation that we all owe
When you start a REAL engine it sounds like shaking a bag full of trashcans.
Yeah, and these guys know how to start round engines smoothly. A real pleasure to see that.
What an art deco nightmare. It looks like a cartoon fantasy airplane. I think they designed the cockpit/fuselage so that the pilot couldn't tell whether he was going to crash or not. That's the only way they could get pilots in them. The look like bumblebees that also don't look capable of flight.
Cute as a bug, but one look tells you it's a widowmaker.
Mr. Weeks, Sir, YOU. HAVE. NERVES. OF. STEEL. Wow... What an amazing- and a bit scary- airplane. Remembering old newsreel images of men like Doolittle and Bayles actually racing those things, throttle to the firewall... GEEZ!!!
Boy This Guy Can Fly,,, I Believe He's What Is Called,,,, "A Natural Pilot" ... "Natural Pilots" Are Far and Few Between In The Aviation World.. "Natural Pilots",,, Per capita, They Are Very Few of Them Around... I Know Kermit Is a Big Howard Hughes Fan,,, That Tells You Just How Smart Kermit Is... Kermit Knows Aviation, and Knows Just How Good Howard Was... Howard Was a "Natural Pilot", He Could Just Jump From Airplane To Airplane... Just Like Kermit Jumps From One Airplane To The Next... You've Got To Be "Yeager/Hoover Good" To Do That Day In and Day Out, Without Making "Headlines",,,, In The Local News Papers,,,,
My guess is flying that plane once is likely enough to scare the hell out of most pilots.
Eddie RIckenbacker flew one and said about the same. I don't remember his quote but it was in effect "I'll never sit in one of those again."
Kermit can fly a bowling ball. This guy is great.
ดูรูปทรงแล้วห่วงว่าจะบินไม่ขึ้น แต่ต้องแปลกใจทีเดียว เครื่องที่แรงมาก ปีกที่สร้างแรงยกได้ดีอย่างไม่น่าเชื่อเลย
I AM SURE YOU ALL KNOW THE HISTORY OF THIS AIRPLANE DESIGN! NOT VERY MANY PEOPLE HAVE FLOWN THIS DESIGN OF AIRPLANE AND LIVED TO TELL OR TALK ABOUT IT! ONE OF THE ONLY PERSONS WHO DID FLY IT AND LIVED TO TALK OF IT WAS MY GREAT UNCLE JIMMY DOOLITTLE. VERY UNSTABLE AIRPLANE BUT VERY FAST!
Interesting! The Z is easily the prettiest (only pretty?) GeeBee. There is a replica Z in the Museum of Flight in Seattle...lemon yellow, really wrong. "Cub Yellow" is more appropriate. It happens that my father flew P-26's in the 1st Pursuit Group out of Selfridge Field, near Detroit. He said that they flew to the Cleveland Air Races and took part in the Air Show there. After the race, they were invited to test fly a GeeBee, and I've been trying to find out which GB design he flew. Apparently, they had a group session, and he flew it first. They were instructed to give full rudder trim (right, I'd speculate) before takeoff. He did, but the next guy didn't and ground looped it on takeoff. Inadequate rudder authority without the trim added. That ended the demo! Apparently, Granville Bros. were trying to sell the design to the USAAC. I asked him what it was like, and he said it had a closed cockpit, with a bigger engine and more power than the P-26, but otherwise flew similarly. I'm pretty certain it wasn't an R-1 or R-2, and not likely the Z, because that would have likely been '37 or later. He said he met Gen. Doolittle, Charles Lindberg, and several times gave Orville W. rides around Wright Field when ol' Dad was a test pilot there. He said the P-26 and B-25 were his two favorite planes. The B-25 got him safely through many missions in the So. Pacific, mostly out of Palawan in the Philippine islands. Dad died in early '93, at 80 years of age. He flew until he was about 69-70, when Mom passed. :(
Actually, modern pilots report the planes are quite stable in flight and have no significant handling problems. They are short coupled which makes the take off run a bit busy when flying from paved runways with crosswinds. Of course the plane was never intended to fly from paved runways with crosswinds. Notice how stable the plane is landing and taking off from Kermit's grass field.
@@StuntPosse My vote for prettiest would be the Model Y. As for your mystery plane, the HM-1 was built by the engineer for the Granville brothers for the purpose of winning a USAAC contract and would've fit your critera.
What a machine that stands out even today,she is a beauty Kermit and so pleased you have this one for your collection,we could see you working hard on that rudder as she came over the threshold,this will be a wonderful exhibit in the air racing section that you have planned.
This plane terrifies me. A barrel shaped bullet over powered and under dampened. This thing ate pilots for breakfast.
I know- I was amazed that he actually flew that deathtrap! Gotta be a great pilot!
10:32 "RAMMING SPEED!" (Who gets the reference?)
That's a beast... What a awesome machine..
Jimmy Doolittle won the Schneider Cup flying the GeeBee Speedster in the '30s. His comment after he won was "I'll never fly that thing again."
Absolutely beauty and absolutely mad. The engine with the cabin attached is a finished and perfect structure, just as the automotive industry was created on this basis, which for me is the only true one. Toys for boys!☝
There used to be one hanging from the ceiling in a building (I think it was the old welcoming center) off Interstate 91 in Springfield, MA. You could see it from the highway it was cool to see.
I bet with 10 more ft of wing, 3 more ft of rudder, 3 more ft of hor stabilizer, and 5 ft longer fuselage this would be a decent airplane! 😆 Beautiful example though!
Any way you can put a autopilot / computer in that thing. The USAF made 'bricks' fly safely. I hate to see it auger in. That HAS to be white knuckle.
Great Video if you are an aviation enthusiast you need to put a trip to Fantasy Of Flight on your bucket list. Great place and great staff
Love the hidden compartments for the electronics.
an engine with wings and wheels.
5:41...I have never seen a tractor/plow like that.
Wow, I always was under the impression that the engine would have had 2 rows of cylinders.
I’d love to see a Gee Bee back at Oshkosh in the near future!!!!
When I was a wee lad I obsessed with aeroplanes, in particular this entrant in the 1988 Guinness Book of World Records. I always wondered what this little sucker sounded like. Now I know, and I thank you for that.