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The Gee Bees were beasts. I believe they all crashed with fatal results.
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Not so true. The Gee Bees were built in the early 30"s, remember, this was in the great deppression. The Z model crashed due to a mechanic improperly attaching the cowl and it blew off and killed the pilot. The R1/R2's were extrordinarily successful when in the hands of competent pilots (ie Doolittle) but when the Granville brothers ran out of money (remember the great deppression) It became a pay to play situation and the crashes resulted from pilots with little or no experience in high powered, heavily loaded aircraft. The replicas do use the original configuration and airfoils and the pilots find them managable but very hot to land.