The Gee Bee Model R, Jimmy Doolittle, and the Flying Barrel That Won the Thompson Trophy and Terrified Every Man Who Ever Strapped Into It

The Gee Bee Model R was a stubby, barrel-shaped racing airplane built by the Granville Brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts, and it earned a reputation as the most dangerous aircraft in America. In 1932, Jimmy Doolittle flew the Gee Bee R-1 to a world landplane speed record and won the Thompson Trophy at the National Air Races in Cleveland - proving that the airplane wasn’t cursed, just unforgiving. It demanded absolute precision from its pilot and punished any lapse in attention.

What Was the Gee Bee Model R?

The Gee Bee Model R was a purpose-built racer created by Granville Brothers Aircraft, a small outfit run by five brothers in Springfield, Massachusetts. The oldest, Zantford “Granny” Granville, was the driving force - a mechanic and dreamer who set out to build the fastest airplane in the country on a shoestring budget.

The Granvilles chased one idea harder than anyone else: pure speed. Everything else about the airplane served that single goal.

There were two versions, the R-1 and the R-2. The famous one wore a scalloped white-over-red paint scheme with racing numbers on the tail. The whole airplane was only about 17 feet long, with a tiny wingspan and an enormous engine hauling it through the sky. On paper, it was the fastest thing ever built for the National Air Races.

Why Was the Gee Bee Shaped Like a Barrel?

Most designers of the era started with a wing and figured out how to hang an engine on it. The Granvilles worked backward. They started with the biggest engine they could get - a Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial putting out around 800 horsepower - and built the smallest possible airplane around it.

Their theory was rooted in aerodynamics. They believed the fattest part of the fuselage should match the fattest part of the engine, then taper away behind it like a teardrop, which they considered nature’s most efficient shape. Bolt a huge round radial onto the front of a teardrop fuselage, and you get the airplane’s signature look: a flying barrel.

Why Was the Gee Bee So Dangerous to Fly?

The teardrop design pushed the cockpit far back, almost at the tail. That was great for aerodynamics but terrible for visibility. On the ground, with the tail down, the pilot couldn’t see over the massive cowling and had to taxi by looking out the sides.

The bigger problem was stability - or the lack of it. Modern airplanes are built to fly straight and level on their own; trim them up, take your hands off the controls, and they help you. The Gee Bee did the opposite. It was balanced on a knife’s edge, twitchy in pitch, and every gust or control input threatened to make it depart. Because the wing was so small and the engine so large, it wanted to fly fast and only fast. Slow it down, and it turned mean.

Pilots said flying it was like balancing a broomstick on your palm while running - possible, but only if you never stopped paying attention. The airplane would not forgive a mistake.

Who Was Jimmy Doolittle?

By 1932, James Harold Doolittle was widely considered the best pilot in America. But he was more than a stick-and-rudder man - he was also a scientist, holding a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from MIT, one of the first such degrees in the world.

Doolittle had already pioneered instrument flying - the “blind flying” that lets modern pilots fly through clouds safely - by flying an aircraft from takeoff to landing under a hood, seeing nothing but his instruments. When he approached the Gee Bee, he didn’t see a deathtrap. He saw a machine with rules. He believed that if he learned those rules and respected them, he could make it do what he wanted.

How Did Doolittle Win the 1932 Thompson Trophy?

The Thompson Trophy was the marquee event at the 1932 National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio - a low-altitude, closed-course pylon race flown right down on the deck. It punished any airplane that couldn’t turn and any pilot who lost his nerve.

Doolittle got to know the R-1 first, flying carefully to find where its edges were. Then he made a decision that defined his approach: he would fly smoothly. No jerky inputs, no fighting the airplane - fingertips on the stick, staying so far ahead of it that it never got the chance to surprise him.

Before the race, he took the same airplane and set the world landplane speed record at better than 296 mph - nearly 300 mph in 1932, in an airplane small enough to fit in a garage.

In the Thompson itself, he didn’t do anything fancy. He got the Gee Bee up to speed and held his line around the pylons, turn after turn, low and clean, never overcooking it. He averaged better than 250 mph and took the trophy going away. In the hands of the one man who truly understood it, the barrel that terrified everyone was untouchable.

Why Did Doolittle Quit Air Racing?

At the peak of his fame - having just won the two biggest prizes in American aviation in the most dangerous airplane in the country - Doolittle walked away from air racing for good.

He explained that he had yet to hear of anyone in the work dying of old age. He had looked around at his fellow racers, counted the empty chairs, and decided to stop while he was at the top of his game. That wasn’t cowardice; it was the wisdom to know when an airplane is writing checks that luck can’t cash.

What Happened to the Gee Bees and the Granvilles?

The Gee Bee’s later history was grim. The Model R’s flew on after Doolittle, and other capable, brave pilots did not come home in them. The airplanes were rebuilt, modified, and flown again, and the accidents kept coming.

Granny Granville himself died a few years later in the crash of another of his designs, reportedly while trying to avoid people on the ground during a forced landing. The golden age took both its builders and its fliers.

Was the Gee Bee Really a “Killer Airplane”?

For decades, the easy story was that the Gee Bee was a widowmaker - uncontrollable and evil. That story was challenged in the 1990s, when Delmar Benjamin built a full-scale, flying Gee Bee R-2 replica.

Benjamin didn’t just fly it straight and level. He flew aerobatics - loops, rolls, and hammerheads - at airshows across the country for years, treating the supposedly uncontrollable deathtrap like an extension of his own body. In doing so, he proved what Doolittle had demonstrated sixty years earlier.

The Gee Bee wasn’t cursed. It was honest - an airplane built at the very edge of what was possible with the knowledge of its day, with no margin for error. It demanded everything from a pilot and gave back nothing but speed. In the hands of someone who understood it, respected it, and never got complacent, it did exactly what it was designed to do - faster than anything else in the sky.

Key Takeaways

The Gee Bee Model R was built by the Granville Brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts, around a ~800 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, with a teardrop fuselage that gave it its “flying barrel” shape.
The airplane had almost no natural stability and demanded constant, precise attention - earning its fearsome reputation.
In 1932, Jimmy Doolittle flew the Gee Bee R-1 to a world landplane speed record of over 296 mph and won the Thompson Trophy in Cleveland at an average of over 250 mph.
Doolittle, an MIT-trained aeronautical engineer, retired from air racing at his peak - an early lesson in knowing the difference between brave and foolish.
Delmar Benjamin flew a full-scale replica aerobatically in the 1990s, proving the Gee Bee was unforgiving rather than uncontrollable.