The Starr Bumble Bee II was an experimental aircraft designed and built specifically to acquire the title of “The World’s Smallest Airplane”.

Design and development

The Bumble Bee II was designed, and built by

Robert H. Starr Robert H. Starr (February 6, 1924 – June 15, 2009) was the designer, builder and pilot of The World's Smallest Piloted Biplane Airplane, the Starr Bumble Bee II. The Guinness Book of Records awarded The Bumble Bee the official world record ...

in Phoenix, Arizona with the intent of breaking the record for world's smallest biplane. Robert Starr had been deeply involved with the development of aircraft holding previous “smallest airplane” titles, including his own Bumble Bee I, which temporarily lost the record of world's smallest aircraft to the Baby Bird designed by Donald Stits, that is until Bumble Bee II flew and regained the Guinness record. The design of the Bumble Bee II is similar to Starr's original Bumble Bee I except the Bumble Bee II was smaller and lighter Both aircraft were biplanes. Both aircraft had negative staggered, cantilevered wings and conventional (tail dragger) landing gears. The fuselage of the Bumble Bee II was constructed of welded steel tubing with sheet metal covering, while the wings were covered in aircraft plywood. The power plant was a Continental C85 4 – cylinder air-cooled horizontally opposed cylinder engine (Boxer Motor) that produced 85 hp. The upper wings had flaps and the lower wings had ailerons. All wing airframe structures were equipped with tip plates to enhance the lift coefficient. The airplane had a small cockpit with the rudder pedals located under the engine compartment toward the front of the cowling.

Operational history

The Bumble Bee II was flown on April 2, 1988, at Marana Airport just outside of Tucson, Arizona to achieve the world record for the smallest piloted airplane. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Bumble Bee II crashed and was destroyed during the 3rd flight on the 5th of May, 1988. At 400 feet of altitude, the engine failed on a down-wind leg. The crash destroyed the Bumble Bee II and severely injured Robert Starr, who made a full recovery.

Aircraft on public display

The Bumble Bee I is on public display at the

Pima Air & Space Museum The Pima Air & Space Museum, located in Tucson, Arizona, is one of the world's largest non-government funded aerospace museums. The museum features a display of nearly 300 aircraft spread out over 80 acres (320,000 m²) on a campus occ ...

Naming

Starr named the aircraft after the bumble bee because bumble bees allegedly do not have enough wing area to fly according to standard aerodynamics, and engineers and pilots made a similar statement about Starr's Bumble Bee I and II, yet both flew.

Specifications

References

External links

{{Commons category
Flight test video
1980s United States sport aircraft Biplanes with negative stagger Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1988 Conventional landing gear