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Bd-5j

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El Bucho

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 10, 2002
Posts
175
Anybody ever build and/or fly a BD-5J? How well does that thing fly? How much an hour does it cost to operate? Just curious. Thanks.

EB
 
One of my students is building one. Putting a glass cockpit in it and a turboprop on the back. I give him 2 maybe 5 flights in it and he will be toast. hate to say it!
 
Flyin Tony said:
One of my students is building one. Putting a glass cockpit in it and a turboprop on the back. I give him 2 maybe 5 flights in it and he will be toast. hate to say it!

There are several BD-5's out there, if he is putting a turboprop on it I bet it is not the 'J' model. Out of everyone I know who has BD-5 time with a prop spinning in the back, all of them have had to make a dead stick landing at one time or another. The only one I knew flying a turboprop one...well...he's dead.

To the original poster, check out www.bd5.com. There should be someone there who could answer your question.
 
I don't know if there are different engine choices for the BD-5J, but the version that was flying at airshows a few years back had an endurance that was on the short side. Like 40 minutes or so. That was total, from full tanks to quiet engine.

It might be a fun plane for pure gee-whiz factor, but in reality you'd be limited to short hops in the pattern. Legally, you'd be limited to daytime flights, since you don't even have a night fuel reserve!
 
EagleRJ said:
I don't know if there are different engine choices for the BD-5J, but the version that was flying at airshows a few years back had an endurance that was on the short side. Like 40 minutes or so. That was total, from full tanks to quiet engine.

It might be a fun plane for pure gee-whiz factor, but in reality you'd be limited to short hops in the pattern. Legally, you'd be limited to daytime flights, since you don't even have a night fuel reserve!

Yea, there are several variants of the BD-5. The 'J' is the only one with a jet engine installed. The others have things like Honda engines in them and whatnot. And now turrboprop versions are starting to spring up.
I'd fly one just to see what it is like. I hear they are fun.
 
EagleRJ said:
I don't know if there are different engine choices for the BD-5J, but the version that was flying at airshows a few years back had an endurance that was on the short side. Like 40 minutes or so. That was total, from full tanks to quiet engine.

It might be a fun plane for pure gee-whiz factor, but in reality you'd be limited to short hops in the pattern. Legally, you'd be limited to daytime flights, since you don't even have a night fuel reserve!
Guess that explains why James Bond was only able to fly just long enough to escape the Cuban (or whatever) soldiers before he had to dead stick onto a rural road and coast into a gas station!

Who says movies never get it right?!;)

LAXSaabdude.
 
theres a reason....

ive seen and read some articles on the turboprop for the BD-5. usually its an APU for a regional/buisness jet. it runs at 100% all the time and you add prop pitch and it throws in more gas to maintain RPM. 0-60 is phenominal. speed is pretty good...if the plane stays together. what youll need to do is find a route fo rthe exhaust where it wont heat the fuel tank, or melt/overheat structural metal. APU exhausts typically run 600c under load. cant rout it out back very well....that deep-knife fuselage is part of the stability of the plane. i think the side works nice tho fo ran exit. i saw the coors light silver bullet at an airshow when i was like 10. Bob Bishop was the cat who flew those things back then. him and some lady toured the country then. its jet engine at full power burned about 350 pounds per hour. at 100%. thats 50gallons per hour. the gas tank holds 45 i think.

of all BD-5's built, about 90+% of them have crashed. read the stories and youll find out what parts over stock need to be replaced with better parts. the origional wing has been replaced. use the 17 ft. wings. the origional canopy was too weak and would structurally fail at speed. replace that with something stronger. cooling the engine is a problem. the prop drive transmission it came with would fail at a reasonably short ammount of time. theres a reason not many are flying. the guy who has all the success with them has replaced enough parts to call it something entirely different now. the acrosport something or other. kind of like Sean Tuckers pitts is no longer a pitts cause so many parts have been modified.

i have a partial kit. fuselage sheetmetal and bulkheads+origional canopy. i bought it in college when i was thinking about a fast fun plane. little did i realize that the reality of building it is at least 5,000 hours if you know what youre doing, and since i'm 6-3 i most likely wouldnt fit in it very well. if youre going to do this, find a complete unbuilt kit. do NOt try to find parts to piece a full kit together with. (an unassembled nosegear kit by itself will run $1500) you can find unbuilt kits for about $3k with EVERYTHING in it. i'm just going to throw my partial kit away. i bought it for $125. and thats about all its mabye worth. i could probably sell the nose as its a 3-way bend piece of metal but i'm not gonna hold my breath.

the whole idea of me building one and flying it scares me ALOT. get the X-plane simulator and build one on there. other than all that...goodluck!
 
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I always thought someone would fix the short comings of the BD-5 and come up with a successful kit - but no one has. I wanted to see a 2 seat tandem version so a stretch would be needed - but - I also think the entire airframe and wings needs to be made larger for some room and flying stability.

The engine was the short coming...it never found the right motor.

I *always* thought a good motor would have been a 180 HP lyc sitting high directly behind the head of the pilot with the drive directly coupled to the prop shaft/prop. Can you picture that? I thought the cylinders could stick out thru the skin into the airstream for cooling just like you see on a J-3 Cub!.

I guess I'm still dreaming!!

Ralph
www.wxnotice.com
 
rfresh said:
I always thought someone would fix the short comings of the BD-5 and come up with a successful kit - but no one has. I wanted to see a 2 seat tandem version so a stretch would be needed - but - I also think the entire airframe and wings needs to be made larger for some room and flying stability.

The engine was the short coming...it never found the right motor.

I *always* thought a good motor would have been a 180 HP lyc sitting high directly behind the head of the pilot with the drive directly coupled to the prop shaft/prop. Can you picture that? I thought the cylinders could stick out thru the skin into the airstream for cooling just like you see on a J-3 Cub!.

I guess I'm still dreaming!!

Ralph
www.wxnotice.com

I do believe there was a 2-place and 4-place Bd-5...they were the BD-12 and BD-14. I don't remember if they flew or not, I think they remained in mockup stage. Can't find no info on them either!
 

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