Scudrunners

Would you fly it?  I would... after brushing up a bit on wheel landings.
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I remember reading an article in the EAA magazine that Delmar
wrote, shortly after his first flight ... he said that he slowed down
too much on final and almost lost it, his first landing.

Steve Wolf is an incredible engineer, pilot and mechanic.  They
don't make them like Steve or Delmar, any more .... everyone
said that the Gee Bee was a fire-breathing dragon that couldn't
be safely flown, and Steve and Delmar proved them all wrong.

No., not me

I think there are some folks that could though.

I wonder if Kermit has flown his Gee Bee lately? I don't remember what model his is.

Rob Holland or Skip Stewart could jump into a Gee Bee R2
and do surface acro the first flight, safely and easily.

I will be shot for mentioning this, but it really is no big deal
to take off in a strange airplane, accelerate level at one foot
to Vs x 2.5 and then at the end of the runway pull +4G's
through the vertical, let it float over the top upside down to
the inverted 45 downline, and smoothly spiral the 1/2 roll
from inverted to upright to keep light and positive G to the
upright 45 downline, then pull smoothly level at the surface.

It's actually a lot easier than a gusty, crosswind landing and
for some odd reason impresses the hell out of people, but
I don't honestly understand why.  They should try writing
and debugging embedded software sometime, even if Rockie
says it's stupid.

They even paint a green arc on the ASI, so you don't even
need to look at the POH for Vs - just look at the bottom of
the green arc, multiply it by 2.5 and that's your entry gate
airspeed for your solo surface acro checkout, starting with
a surface 1/2 cuban eight at the departure end of the runway.

Rob Holland and Skip Stewart make me look like a retard, so
they could easily fly the GBR2.  So could this guy:

This video shows a few things that made more challenges in the 1930s.

Mr Dolittle talks about stalling it at 90 mph, then I'm watching the bumpy take off run in the partially prepared field they are using.

Also they talk about the crash involving Mr Granville due to having to do a go around because someone, whom I think must have been deaf, wandered onto the field.

One of them crashed because it lost a wing.

I'm not saying they are benign or that you would not require very good skills to fly them but I think some of the reputation leading to the dark nicknames are unfair.

Curtis Pitts used to say that there were no squirrelly airplanes -
just squirrelly pilots  ^-^

Generally, if "everyone" says that an airplane is "bad news" -
a real "fire breathing dragon" - it's going to be a delight to fly,
at least if you're not a total wanker.

Types might include the GBR2, Pitts, MU-2, F-104, U-2.  All
of these get a lot of bad press from donkeys, but if you ever
get a chance to fly one, it will be exhilarating.

White Gloves here really knows how to land a Maule:





People really bad-mouthed the elderly Beech 18, but
I found it delightful when I checked myself out on it.





Those guys aren't much compared to Canadian pilots
like Arlo and Rotten Ronnie, but I think they're pretty
good.

Did the white gloves Maule guy say “fuck it, I quit flying...” about 2 minutes before he landed? 


What the hell.  He gave up flying a good airplane on final. 

No one ever taught White Gloves how to fly, as far as I can tell.