Microsoft Flight Simulator’s latest Famous Flyer offerings take you into the cockpits of the most legendary speed kings of the Golden Age of Flight: The Gee Bee Model Z and the Gee Bee Model R-2. These Super Sportsters dominated air racing at the sport’s peak in the early 1930s, and they continue to captivate imaginations to this day due to their unique forms and historic successes. Exquisitely reproduced in photorealistic detail by Carenado, the Model Z Super Sportster and the Model R-2 Super Sportster are ready to be pushed to their limits in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Both are available now, with original, historic cockpits and three liveries (historic, Xbox, and Aviator’s Club), for both PC and Xbox.
The 1920s and 1930s witnessed incredible strides in aircraft development, opening new frontiers for passenger travel, exploration, logistics, and science. The Golden Age of Flight also saw the rise of airplanes built for raw speed, ones conceived to not just go fast—and then faster—but to be the very fastest. During the Golden Age of Air Racing, aircraft streaked past crowds of over 100,000 that cheered on pilots to squeeze every last bit of velocity from their machines, machines built for one purpose only: to win.
Among the many companies vying to create aircraft to roar into first place at air races, one firm stood above all others, Granville Brothers Aircraft. Based out of Springfield, Massachusetts, the company emerged in 1925 as an aircraft repair shop and then stepped into the world of manufacturing original models, some of which debuted at air races shortly after their release. By the late 1920s, the company had achieved its first speed successes with its “Sportster” design, leading the firm to idealize a model purpose-built to win first place, and not just in any air race, but first place at the National Air Races. The Gee Bee (“Gee Bee” is a phonetic representation of the initials for Granville Brothers) Super Sportster concept was born, and it was an aircraft unlike any before—or since.
