First flight 1948 | ||
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The Beecraft Wee Bee was an American ultralight monoplane designed and built by Beecraft Associates. It was described as the world's smallest plane.
Contents
Development
The Wee Bee was designed by William "Bill" Chana, Kenneth Coward, and Karl Montijo. They described it as big enough to carry a man and small enough to be carried by a man.
It was an all-metal cantilever mid-wing monoplane powered by a Kiekhaefer O-45-35 flat-twin piston engine. It had a conventional tail and fixed tri-cycle landing gear. The unusual feature was that the aircraft lacked any internal room for a pilot who had to fly it lying prone on top of the fuselage.
Only a prototype registration NX90840 was built and the type did not enter production. The prototype was destroyed when the San Diego Air and Space Museum burned down in 1978. After the fire, a replica was built and is now on display at the new San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park.
Specifications
Data from
General characteristics
Performance