Granville Brothers Aircraft was an

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry. ...

from 1929 until its bankruptcy in 1934 that was located at the Springfield Airport in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

. The Granville Brothers—Zantford, Thomas, Robert, Mark and Edward—are best known for the three Gee Bee Super Sportster racers, the Models Z, R-1 and R-2. Prior to building aircraft, Zantford ran a mobile aircraft repair service.

Aircraft

''Data from:''Aerofiles The Granville Brothers completed 25 aircraft of which only two original aircraft are known to still exist. Granville Brothers Model A Sportster (2834539355)

Granville Brothers Model A Sportster (2834539355)

Replica and reproduction Gee Bee aircraft

GeeBee R2 Super Sportster at Fantasy of Flight

A Model E replica was flown and wrecked before being donated to the

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is an aviation museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Its exhibits include the Hughes H-4 Hercules (''Spruce Goose'') and more than fifty military and civilian aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and spac ...

McMinnville, Oregon McMinnville is the county seat of and largest city in Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. The city is named after McMinnville, Tennessee. As of the 2019 census, the city had a population estimate of 34,743. McMinnville is at the confluence of ...

. Another Model E replica was being built in Australia. A replica of Florence Klingensmith's Model YL was completed in 1984 powered by a Lycoming R-680. A Model Z replica first flown in 1978 was used by the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

in the film ''

The Rocketeer The Rocketeer is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books originally published by Pacific Comics. Created by writer/artist Dave Stevens, the character first appeared in 1982 and is an homage to the Saturday matinee serial heroes ...

'' (1991), which is now on display at the

Seattle Museum of Flight The Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seattle.< ...

. A second Gee Bee Z replica was sold to Fantasy of Flight. The

New England Air Museum The New England Air Museum (NEAM) is an American aerospace museum located adjacent to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. The museum consists of three display hangars with additional storage and restoration hangars. Its co ...

and the

San Diego Air & Space Museum San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM, formerly the San Diego Aerospace Museum) is an aviation and space exploration museum in San Diego, California, United States. The museum is located in Balboa Park and is housed in the former Ford Building, ...

have each completed replica R-1s with help from the Granville's under the agreement that the aircraft will never be flown. The

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is a transportation museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society's Cleveland History Center in University Circle, and its collection includes about 170 cars. It ...

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

also has an R-1 replica on display as of June 2018. The

Museum of Springfield History has a full size static fiberglass replica of the R-1 hanging in the atrium."Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History."
'springfieldmuseums.org.'' Retrieved: August 30, 2010. A Gee Bee R-2 Super Sportster replica flown extensively since 1991 is now at Fantasy of Flight. A highly modified replica of the Gee Bee R-6 powered by a

Wright R-1820 Cyclone The Wright R-1820 Cyclone 9 is an American radial engine developed by Curtiss-Wright, widely used on aircraft in the 1930s through 1950s. It was produced under license in France as the Hispano-Suiza 9V or Hispano-Wright 9V, and in the Soviet Uni ...

was first flown on 26 September 2013.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Benjamin, Delmar and Steve Wolf. ''Gee Bee''. St. Paul, Minnesota: MBI Publishing Co., 1993. . * Bowers, Pete M. ''The Gee Bee Racers — Number 51''. Leatherhead, Surrey, UK: Profile Publications Ltd., 1965. * Granville, J.I. ''Farmers Take Flight''. Springfield, Massachusetts: Copy Cat Print Shop, 2000. . * Haffke, Henry A. ''Gee Bee: The Real Story of the Granville Brothers and Their Marvelous Airplanes''.Colorado Springs, Colorado: VIP Publishers, Inc., 1989. . * Mendenhall, Charles A. and Tom Murphy. ''The Gee Bee Racers: A Legacy of Speed''. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 1994. . * Schmid, S.H. and Truman C. Weaver. ''The Golden Age of Air Racing: Pre-1940'', 2nd rev. edition (EAA Historical Series). Osceola, Wisconsin: MBI Publishing Co., 1991. . * ''Those Incredible Gee Bees'' (VHS 60 min). Springfield, Massachusetts: Studio 16, 1992.

External links