Bd-5j

[El Bucho]

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

 

[Flyin Tony]

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!

 

[Ill Mitch]

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.

 

[EagleRJ]

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!

 

[Ill Mitch]

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.

 

[LAXSaabdude]

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.

 

[Airpiraterob]

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!

 

[Traumahawk]

Prob get some excellent info from this:

http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepBD-5.html

 

[rfresh]

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

 

[crash-proof]

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!

 

[rfresh]

Yes, you are right. I do recall those two models. However, I do not recall if they were kits or trying to get FAA certification. They had side-by-side seating vs tandem which is what I would have preferred. With tandem seating, for balance purposes, the solo pilot would have to ride in the front seat.

Ralph
www.wxnotice.com

 

[EagleRJ]

I haven't seen anything on the 4-seat Bede models in years. They probably never left the drawing board.

There was another kitplane that was a little like the BD-5 that was made by Rans. The S-11 Pursuit was a single-seater with a delta wing, chined fuselage, and twin vertical tails. It was powered by a Rotax up front. It looked a little like a miniature F-15!
It's no longer listed on the Rans website, and I've never seen one at Oshkosh or anywhere else. Maybe there wasn't enough interest to start making kits.

 

[crash-proof]

I haven't seen anything on the 4-seat Bede models in years. They probably never left the drawing board.

There was another kitplane that was a little like the BD-5 that was made by Rans. The S-11 Pursuit was a single-seater with a delta wing, chined fuselage, and twin vertical tails. It was powered by a Rotax up front. It looked a little like a miniature F-15!
It's no longer listed on the Rans website, and I've never seen one at Oshkosh or anywhere else. Maybe there wasn't enough interest to start making kits.

I remember the Pursuit! It was around 1994, and there was a lot of buzz around this design. It was beyond doubt cutting edge, even for today's standards. Problem is, with slick tightly-cowled designs, 2-strokes don't mix. The pilot-owner crash-landed the plane and got badly burned after overheating the engine. That must have scared away potential buyers. I always thought it deserved a better engine than that measly 2-stroker it had.

Found a pic...thanks google!
http://hometown.aol.com/rcflyerkc/pursuit.JPG

 

[Airpiraterob]

I haven't seen anything on the 4-seat Bede models in years. They probably never left the drawing board.

There was another kitplane that was a little like the BD-5 that was made by Rans. The S-11 Pursuit was a single-seater with a delta wing, chined fuselage, and twin vertical tails. It was powered by a Rotax up front. It looked a little like a miniature F-15!
It's no longer listed on the Rans website, and I've never seen one at Oshkosh or anywhere else. Maybe there wasn't enough interest to start making kits.

it had a chined fuselage....kind of. the rotax 912 in it had air cooled cylinder barrels and watercooled heads. either way those cylinder banks had fairings around them and those went straight back into the leading edge of the wings. somewhat short stubby wings. it was not a delta. however that fairing also wqent all the way abck to the tail and flattened out and became aprt of the elevator. the Rans guy...Randy schlutter...(or however it was spelled) crashed something fierce in it and screwed up a leg and some ribs i believe..anyway he had a bad crash and alsmot died. i think the design was difficult to develop due to the intircate fuselage shapes working mojo on the airflow during various angles of attack. and they decided to kill the project.

personally i think the S9 chaos with a modded 680 rotax would be alot of fun.

 

[EagleRJ]

Yeah- I guess looking at the picture it's not a true delta wing. I was going from memory.

If I remember right, the Pursuit's fuselage was a modernized tube-and-fabric design. It had a molded skin that was attached over a tube frame- the skin was non-structural. It was probably really heavy as a result, but they had to do it that way due to the shape. I'm sure Rutan or another modern designer could do the same thing with a composite monocoque shell. It would be a fun plane with a Subaru or rotary conversion up front! Maybe install a BRS chute too, with the classic black and yellow loops over the pilot's head....

 

[SabreTriker]

I bought a nearly complete BD-5 many years ago from a guy down in the Bahamas. Ready to fly except for the engine. He delivered it to West Palm Beach on the front of his boat. The Coast Guard followed him into port and searched it. Figured there HAD to be drugs involved. Anyway it languished in the hanger next to my Bonanza in Merritt Island for about 5 years while I looked for a good engine setup. Took it out every now and them, plugged in the wings, sat in it and went, vrooom, vrooom. Took it to Sun-n-Fun one year in the back of my truck and sold it for $2,400 bucks! Doubled my money. Wonder what became of it. Later regretted selling it. Would have made one HELL of a wetsub...

 

[camech]

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

Bad Reputation. There's a whole lot more safer aircraft out there. I think the BD5 comes under the category of "Death Metal"