The Short but Spectacular
Life of the Gee Bee Model Z "City of Springfield" Air
Racer
The Gee Bee story began in Madison, N.H., where Wilfred and Belle
Granville raised seven children, five boys and two girls. The brothers,
Zantford (Granny), Robert, Tom, Edward, Mark and sisters Pearl and Gladys
made up the family.
The oldest child, Granny, was a self-taught
automobile mechanic with an eighth-grade education and an affinity for
anything mechanical. Granny moved to Boston at age 17 where he took a job
selling cars. A year later he established an auto repair business in
Arlington, Mass., where he sold Chevrolets and did service work. When
Granny was 20 he exchanged his services as a mechanic for flight
instruction at East Boston Airport.
In 1922, Granny went to
work as a mechanic for the Boston Airport Corporation. His brother Tom
took over the auto repair business in Arlington. With the experience
Granny gained working on aircraft at the Boston Airport Corp., plus his
own mechanical ability, he decided to start his own aircraft company. He
established the Granville Brothers Aircraft Co. and his three remaining
brothers soon joined him in this new enterprise.
Granny and his brothers
designed and built a small, single cockpit, side-by-side seat biplane they
called the Model A. Their Model A made its first flight on May 3, 1929.
Searching for adequate
facilities to manufacture their Model A biplane, the Granvilles contacted
the Chamber of Commerce of Springfield, Mass., on May 17, 1929, and on
July 6 finalized plans to locate at the airport there. The brothers
attempted to raise money to build their Gee Bees by entering their first
air meet at Springfield on July 10.
Here they met the four
Tait brothers, James, Harry, Frank and George, owners of Springfield’s
biggest ice cream and dairy business as well as developers of the
Springfield airport. A few weeks later the Granville Brothers were
incorporated, building planes in an abandoned dance pavilion formerly
named the Venetian Gardens at the Springfield Airport.
Granny hired three college
trained engineers, Bob Hall, Bob Ayre and Bob Dexter, all of whom went on
to successful careers in aviation. Using Kinner K-5 engines, nine of the
Model As were built and sold before the full weight of the Great
Depression dried up their business. The new company was on the verge of
collapse when the All American Flying Derby was organized and sponsored by
American Cirrus Engines Inc.
This was to be the longest
air race held in the world at the time – a 5,541 mile course that took
the contestants from Detroit, Mich., to Texas, west to California, and
back to Detroit. All the aircraft in the race were powered by one of the
engines . . .
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Gee Bee Model Z "City of Springfield"
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