BD-5 question

[JimWoo50]

I have been hanging around airports for a long time and have never seen one of these either in the air or in a hangar. My late father was building one and ended up donating it to a local school. I wonder if he knew it was a bad design or what? Has anyone ever seen one (beside the jet at OSH) fly?

[Mel]

There's 324 BD-5s registered on the FAA website. How many of these are flying is any body's guess. I have seen a few fly. There used to be one or two at Sun-N-Fun every year. I'm still looking for one to build and use as a "wind T" for my airport.

[gmcjetpilot]

Originally Posted by JimWoo50

I have been hanging around airports for a long time and have never seen one of these either in the air or in a hangar. My late father was building one and ended up donating it to a local school. I wonder if he knew it was a bad design or what? Has anyone ever seen one (beside the jet at OSH) fly?

To be blunt the BD-5's have a very checkered past. First the famous (infamous in some peoples mind) Jim Bede took deposits on future BD-5 planes. He failed and defaulted on those orders. My father had a deposit on one. I was a very small child when this was going on. I have seen one prop guy out of Canada fly into Arlington in the late 80's early 90's.

One reason for the BD-5 failure was Bede had a terrible time finding an engine and drive system that would work. They came up with something but it was too late they ran out of money. Conventional tractor driven planes like a RV (prop in from pulling verses prop in back pushing) have a prop attached to the engine. The BD-5 is a pusher with prop in the rear and the engine is mid-airframe, so a long shaft, bearings and reduction drive is needed to make it work. That complication was the down fall. Many technical aspects have been worked out since and people have made all kinds of custom engines and drives work to one degree or another on their own. Some have not worked and added to the fatality rate.

The last and most difficult to talk about is many Pilots have lost their lives in them. They often crash and die on first flight. For one they are very small and there is not much structure there for crashworthiness to protect you. Second they are a challenge to fly with a side stick with very small control throws and sensitivity. What would happen is pilots who only had Cessna 172 time would stop flying altogether to spent years building their BD-5. Than they finish the plane and strap on an experimental plane that is hotter and more sensitive than anything they had flown before by a factor of 20, with rusty skills. Disaster usually resulted. Also often the brand new never tried custom engine installation performance, like low power issues, added to the equation.

The BD-5J or Jet version gained some fame in one of the James Bond movies and in airshow acts like Coors Light Silver Bullet. Sadly the safety record of the BD-5J is not that great either. Many have crashed and many died. Many are used by pro pilots for airshows and even as targets for radar or military test on contract. One of these owned by a company that was on contract with the military recently crashed in the last year or two on approach in the north east. I don't recall if they know the reason it went down or will find out. The company has another one they still fly.

So the combination of no standard engine and very sensitive controls with no manufacture support has made them somewhat of a black sheep. For those that have successfully built and flown them, great, but so many have died, many on the first flight.

There are so many reasons to recommend the RV over the BD-5. You can get training in RV's before first flight. The control and handling of the RV is supreme, precise and predictable. The design using standard engine and props gives it reliability. The stall speed is down in the low 50 mph range and there is more structure around you. So why would anyone want a BD-5. Well if it lived up to the dream, a little bullet or rocket that could fly 200 mph on 90 hp, was super cool. Of course a RV can fly over 200 mph easily and take off and land on very short strips and grass. RV's do crash and some times on first flight but it is not common.

PS: I was kind of surprised at the accident records. I thought the BD-5's would be worse. Don't get me wrong they are terrible, 15% crashed with raw numbers. A quick NTSB check for BD-5's from 1976 to 2001, shows 48 accidents, 19 fatal. RV's show 112 fatal accident, out of a total 368. I guess there are over 5000 registered RV's. Of course flight hours flown? Who knows but I am sure the hours flown by RV's in infinitely larger than the current fleet of BD-5's. You would have to do a statistical analysis and fill in the data with more than the registered planes and number of accidents, however 112 fatal accidents out of 5000 planes flown A LOT, verses 19 fatal out of a fleet of 324, most likely not flying many hours is telling. The raw percentage per fleet is 2.2% verses 6%. For all accidents its 7.3% and 14.8%. I suspect many BD-5's don't fly very much or at all and the RV's fleet flight hours are huge verses the BD-5's, so the accident rate is very high for the BD-5. To be fair the RV could be better, but than you have to look at why accidents happen or what caused them. I think pilot error figures in many RV accidents. The BD likely has more mechanical failures or contribution to accidents. Bottom line safety can be improved, but as an airframe the RV is very safe, primarily due to the low stall speed and the aluminum structure that bends and deforms, which absorbs energy, unlike composite airframes.

[beattiema]

This was on AvWeb today. Jim Bede is trying to make something "fly" again

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#195074

Check out the wikipedia article on the Bede history and the projects he's been associated with. Agreed he has had some successful designs but it sure seems he collects a lot of deposit money along the way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bede

[jtrusso]

I'm an engineer and here at Bring Your Child to Work Day we had a BD5-J on display out in the courtyard. The guy who owns it is apparently a retired engineer, he let's the kids sit in and explains what all the instruments do while they move the control stick. He said he bought the half completed parts from someone who decided to give up on the kit and used it as a class project. Now he uses it as an educational display to get kids excited in science. He doesn't know if it is flyable (it has the original stubby wings) and he doesn't ever plan on flying it. It doesn't have any electronics or an engine. It is amazing how tiny that plane is, the top of the vertical stab stands at most 5' off the ground. It would be a kick in the pants to fly one, but I'd be afraid. There is no crash protection in that plane, if you nose in the pilot is one of the first things to hit the ground.

I don't know what I was thinking...I should have taken a picture of it. I've actually seen it here before, if I see it again I'll snap a few pics and post them.

There was article about a BD-5 builder and his father in I think it was last months Sport Aviation. It's a good read, I highly recommend it.

[Phyrcooler]

For a similar take on the design... check out the LH-10 Ellipse...

http://www.lhaviation.com

[Guy Prevost]

My sister's husband has a complete BD-5 kit still in the crates. His father bought it during the heyday of the design and never did anything with it. I've seen the canopy, but I think it would be really cool to poke around the contents of the crates and see what's what.

Guy

[N941WR]

One of my neighbors bought a ?flying? BD-5 and spent a year getting it into the air. He replace the snowmobile engine with a rotax of some type. (He sold the plane to buy a boat to make his wife happy, they divorced, and both moved out so this is from memory.)

The airplane is small, VERY small. I remember sitting in it and thinking there was only a thin skin between me and my toes. Also, since the canopy comes so far down there is very little structure to use to gauge your altitude & attitude with when landing. That was my observation anyway.

His plane came with a custom trailer from Bede, specifically designed to hold the fuselage and removable wings.

The guy who owned it was a Captain with US Airways and his comments about its flight characteristics were telling.
- It is fast and you have to fly it all the time.
- The first landing was challenge because you are sitting on the runway, probably 12? off the pavement.
- You can?t let your mind wonder when flying this thing.

I did see him fly it over the house a few times and it was FAST. Due to its small size, it may have actually been slower than the impression it left in my mind. Kind of the opposite of seeing a C5 come in to land, they look like they are moving about 5 MPH on short final. I think he said he put somewhere around 50 hours on it before selling it.

On thing he did say was that he didn?t trust the engine and he didn?t want to EVER have an off airport landing in the thing.

Still, having a BD-5J would be SO cool!

The funny part of it was our subdivision does not allow boats, campers, or any type of trailers in your driveway. When the neighbors on his street found out he was working on this thing in his driveway/carport they tried to get the home owners association to pressure him to move it. Turns out, our convents never thought anyone would have an airplane in their driveway so there was nothing they could do.

[Frank]

Here is an actively flying BD-5.
http://www.geocities.com/eaa818/dmischkebd5.html
located in Burlington, WA at Skagit Regional Airport (BVS).

[Bob Axsom]

Jack bought the kit back in the time that the BD-5 was introduced. He started it but his business demands forced him to set it aside. Now he has retired and he is working on it to complete what he started decades ago. He is a nice guy that is physically and mentally suited for the task. Man, I hope it works out well for him. I have never seen one fly but I sure hope this one makes it.

Bob Axsom