The Gee Bee

[Darrell]

Cool old plane, you might remember it from the movie the Rocketeer:

http://mydelineatedlife.blogspot.com/20 ... e-bee.html

The blog, the Pictorial Arts, has an interesting mix of old graphic arts.

[Rumpshot]

The only flying GB I am aware of, is a replica that lives at Salinas, CA in Sean Tucker's hangar. I used to look it over on a regular basis.

[MarkD]

"given enough engine, you can make a brick fly" -- Howard Hughes

Similar to what a bartender I knew (who was a Marine aircraft weapons systems specialist, i.e. he loaded bombs onto jets) said about the F-4 Phantom, that it's living proof that a brick will fly if you put enough thrust behind it.

[Netpackrat]

IIRC, Jimmy Doolittle considered the R the most dangerous airplane he had ever flown. It is not dynamically stable. In other words, if you stop making corrections, it will depart controlled flight after a few cycles, and maybe even come apart.

[mousegun]

Oh and the Thompson Products Company, which sponsored the Thompson trophy race, still exists today, in the form of Thompson Ramo Woolridge, aka TRW...

...or as the Air Force knows them both affectionately and irritatedly as "TR fucking Wonderful"

Not quite correct. The only thing that still exists is TRW Automotive Inc. The Data Systems group that was TRW credit became Experian.....my father was instrumental in the main frame center build and run on Simms Ave. in Hawthorne. I had been in that computer roome many times growing up.

TRW Aerospace div. is Northrup Grumman. I live three blocks from them currently, they are a fixture where I grew up. I can step out of my apt. and look to the back of the property and see the high rise quite clearly.

Funny thing is that I work for the competition and my employer is also the sub. that provided the main sensor payload for several important contemporary satellites / busses of theirs. I have the challenge coins to back this up since I worked on them.

[Termite]

There is a certain number of idiots who aren't happy unless "they are going Mach 2 with their hair on fire".

The time line is irrelevant....

[Legman688]

Similar to what a bartender I knew (who was a Marine aircraft weapons systems specialist, i.e. he loaded bombs onto jets) said about the F-4 Phantom, that it's living proof that a brick will fly if you put enough thrust behind it.

Oh. Here I've been describing the F-4 as the U.S. Navy's proof that, if you stuff a pair of J-79s in the back, you can, in fact, make a dump truck fly.

There is a certain number of idiots who aren't happy unless "they are going Mach 2 with their hair on fire".

The time line is irrelevant....

Yes. They are called, "All fighter pilots, ever."