Only thing I love more then cl***ic cars is cl***ic planes............BUT I always thought that scallops came from old birds anyways? AND NO not the gal at the end of the bar old bird! **x Brandy
That's the era of them being most common, but they predated that particular plane by some years, the scallops may go as far back as castles and knights, in banners and regalia, and on many early aircraft. The aircraft in that photo is Delmar Benjamin's replica of the Gee Bee racer. built about a decade ago. I had the fortune of seeing him fly it. Upside down at 200mph, 36 feet off the ground! Hammerheads, knife edge, loops. you nme it, only him and Jimmy Dolittle have ever flow one and lived to tell about it. He cancelled his show tour after 9-11 and then put the plane up in the Smithsonian museum.
Don't want to upset anyone here, but why cancel after 9-11? Have they stopped airshows? Having worked on aicraft my whole working life, and having flown somewhat, i bet this thing would be quite a handfull to keep straight and level.
They grounded aircraft period for a while. Shows are happening now though, tragically I'm afraid. (three fatal crashes in one weekend) It was towards the end of his airshow season anyway, he only had I think 4 more shows and then it would have been back to doing his other job, being a farmer in Montana(?) Maybe his wife and two daughters convinced him he'd proved his point with the plane? I don't know... It was a handful to fly and trecherous to land. It.s take off speed is over 120mph had to be brought in at even higher speed, 200+mph, and the tail kept up or it wanted to "reverse aileron" and the aileron you expect to raise a wing would act like a landing flap and drag that wing into the ground and cartwheel the plane. I saw the s****e he left on the tip of the right wing to prove it, and as a constant reminder to himself to keep the speed and tail up when taking off and landing. The plane has a 25 ft wingspan, 102.2 sq ft wing area and is only 17 ft 9 inches long. about a hand longer than a VW bug! I have four models of it I've built over the years, two of which are U-control fliers. Flying a model of one is like putting a harness on a Bumble Bee and taking it for a walk! MotorBooks International has a good book on it GEE BEE by Delmar Benjamin and Steve Wolf ISBN 0-87938-820-X And Delmar's wife was selling Videos of the build and test flights of it at the air show I saw it at. She was his "Carney-Announcer" for all the stunts, including racing an Art Arfons style Jet Dragster down the runway, him in the plane, upside down, just above the dragster. (The jet-dragster won.) Here's another GeeBee replica.
The Jalopy Journal
