Bede BD-5B
You might know the BD-5 from its jet-powered version, the BD-5J, which we recently featured in a roundup of Very Light Jets. That plane was in a James Bond movie,…
You might know the BD-5 from its jet-powered version, the BD-5J, which we recently featured in a roundup of Very Light Jets. That plane was in a James Bond movie, and several plied the airshow circuit for years. But the BD-5J is more of a novelty than a practical plane. This is not the case for the BD-5B. It is the only kit plane on our list, but a production version was in the works when Bede Aircraft went belly up in the mid-1970s. The company actually took around 12,000 deposits for the plane, and it delivered more than 5,000 kits, most of those for a purchase price including engine of less than $2,000. Everything slowly ground to a halt as the company searched in vain for a suitable engine for the model. But what a plane.
The BD-5 is a single-seat, single-engine pusher with enviable performance numbers---around 200 knots on just 70 hp. Over the years that Bede tweaked the design, it worked out most of several problems, in part by enlarging a too-small wing and simplifying its systems. And one might quibble that there are plenty of BD-5s out there, but the truth is, there are only around 30 flying examples, of which a few are jet versions. So while Bede Aircraft sold thousands of kits and took many thousands of deposits for a production model that never got close, the story of the BD-5 is that of a fast, cool, efficient and affordable plane that never made it.
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