BD5 High Performance Micro Jet

BD5 jet is one of the first kit jet ever produced. With the design first introduced in 1972. The BD5 is an experimental homebuilt aircraft that can be powered by a single piston engine or a turbine jet engine. The one feature in the video is powered by a turbine engine with 220 lbs of full thrust.

You are cruising north of 300 mph in this jet and you'd be burning roughly 50 gph doing it.

The BD5 is comparable to the Sonex jet which we featured here a while back. Price point is around $150,000 for a finished built airplane

My Airplane Specs
- 2021 Sling TSi
- Rotax 915 (141 hp engine)
- Range: up to 1000 miles
- Climb rate: 1200 fpm
- Speed: 170 mph
- Fuel: 8 gph
- Dual G3x + G5 Backup + GTN 650 + GMC 507 Autopilot
- Build Price + Training: $325,000

[edjohnson]

I flew over 400 Airshows, including Air Venture, in the BD-5J. Had 2 of them at one time. Along with a Pitts and a Lazer. Sponsored first by Republic Airlines and later for years by Bud Light. It is not for the faint of heart to fly. Especially low level Airshow Aerobatics. Having flown Fighters with 2 Combat Tours from the F4 Phantom to the F-15, it flys like a Mini Fighter. Much more sensitive though. You just add force to the stick without much movement at all. Kind of like flying by thought. If you can fly an Unlimited Aerobatic Plane and a Jet Fighter, plus know how to land a High Performance Sail Plane, you would be qualified for it. Otherwise forget it. Too many Pilots have died flying it. Even a top Test Pilot at Edwards Air Force Base crashed it and barely survived. It is also very light and subject to heavy turbulence at high speed. However, having said all that, it is the THRILL of a LIFETIME to fly low level Airshows in !!!

[ParadigmUnknwn]

Literally a personal jet from a James Bond film.

[jenniferwhitewolf]

A Lotus and a BD5 was the dream garage of 1972. I got half of the dream... though later graduated to Corvettes. half a century later, still love the BD5... and never owned a plane... Brilliant design, efficient and timeless.

[bladenrexroth]

The BD-10 is basically a light sport fighter jet

[thomasharroun]

I met Jim Bede 30 years ago when he presented the BD-10. The BD-5 was used for the Coors Silver Bullet. Jim Bede worked at McDonnell Douglas in St Louis. The BD-5 was also used during the opening of the James Bond Movie Octopussy.

[sibtainbukhari]

Such a cool plane! Wish jets like these were more popular and available to the common man. An interview with the owner would have been nice, he seemed keen

[pdutube]

I think BD Micro sells kits now but their jet is called the FLS Microjet.

[NicksStuff]

The air vent that is spring loaded and pops open is genius!

[randthompson]

You're partly correct. My buddy has TWO B-D5's.
One built and one in a factory UN-opened kit.

[rafiqsaid]

the prop version with only 60 hp still cruises at 200 kts!
and has a range of almost 1000 mi.

[stevekozar]

That's the first plane that really got me interested in airplanes & flying. I saw one being flown in an airshow (it was a Budweiser branded/sponsored) in the late 70s or early 80s. I met the pilot & got his autograph on their big postcard flyer thingy. I've wanted to have one ever since!

[arrowdynamix]

I can remember seeing the BD-5 for the first time back in the day in Popular Mechanics. Then the BD-5J came out. Beautiful little aircraft!

Looking at these aircraft with their elegant curves, I can’t figure out why Sonex made their jet so butt ugly!

[seamusjames]

Crazy to stumble across this: my grandfather briefly owned a litestar dealership in the '80s. Unfortunately, he was killed in a car accident driving one from Las Vegas to Arizona. He also built a Quickie 2 (Rutan design) before I was born. RIP Clarence Greenwood. What a legend.

[Jeffopar]

Hey Mike it was great to meet you at OSH the other day. You are a great and humble guy, a fantastic spokesman for GA. Thanks for your content.

[bwc]

I'd pick something like this over a Lamborghini any day!

[elizabethlewis]

Justin Lewis is a pilot of an an airshow Microjet performing at Oshkosh 2021.

[DanFrederiksen]

Actually the piston versions aren't bad. It could do 373km/h cruise with a 70hp engine iirc. And hte jet in this one is a turbojet which is the hungry kind whereas a more modern turbofan can be quite efficient if you pressurized the bird and took it up. It could also be made lighter today than it is. With a modern jet engine, maybe a little longer body for stability and pressurized I wouldn't be surprised if it could do above 700km/h and have a range around 2000km. And tandem seating doesn't take much space so you could do a 2 seater without too much penalty.
If you needed a plane to actually go places, it could go places. And if light it could probably do very short runways.

[wademant]

Hi Mike, Thanks for the hello and handshake at Oshkosh - great for me and wifey to meet you - keep up the efforts !

[alfredhermansen]

Most of the completed kits actually crashed and killed their pilots. Coors Lite "Silver Bullet" had 2 modified "safer" ones built and had them flown at airshows for a while. One of them crashed twice, the second time after repair from the first incident killed the pilot and destroyed the aircraft. They were marketed as personal jet fighters for shade tree mechanics, featured in Popular Mechanics magazine and the like, but no former jet pilot would ever consider flying one they were so inherently dangerous. Most Jim Bede designed aircraft were notorious widow makers.

[kevinbailey]

My dad was building one of these (the prop version) when I was a kid. He finished the fuselage and the wings. I don’t know exactly why he stopped. Two versions of the story I heard were that the engine wasn’t ready for the kit builders, and that some builders were finishing their aircraft and then suddenly dying.

Other than my dad’s, the only two I’ve seen irl are one at the Udvar Hazy Air and Space museum near Dulles and one at the Evergreen museum in McMinnville, Oregon (home of the Spruce Goose). You can’t touch the one at the Smithsonian. The one in Oregon was hands on, because it’s just a shell (looking exactly like my dad’s!) and they had it in the kids’ play area.