Bede BD-5: The World’s Smallest Jet (Video)
by Sze | Filed under Others, Video.
The single-seat Bede BD-5 is the world’s Smallest Jet as recorded in the Guinness World Records. It has its big screen debut in the James Bond flick Octopussy. Watch the video after the jump.
The Bede BD-5 is a small, single-seat homebuilt kit aircraft that was introduced in the early 1970s by Bede Aircraft Corp. It was designed by Jim Bede. It is a pusher aircraft design, with the engine installed in a compartment in the middle of the fuselage, and a propeller in the rear. Over 5,000 kits were shipped, but few were actually completed due to the company’s bankruptcy in the mid-1970s, brought on by the failure to deliver a reliable engine for the design.
Tags: BD-5, Bede, Bede-BD-5, Guinness-World-Records, James-Bond, jet, Others, Video
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December 24th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
The picture is not of a BD-5J. The current record holder is N3038V. See http://www.bd5.com/my5j.htm
April 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
bede is totally grounded-it`s builder and test flyers ALL died in it.A weak under enginered airframe was it`s doom.They built it from alum-sheet metal with no brain work or testing put into the project.The smaller the aircraft the more unstable and more able to roll and tuck under.They should have put the design into the computer flight testing programs first.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
It`s a junk pile that killed it`s builder and test flyers.NO enginering was put into the airframe and it failed time after time.It`s not a jet aircraft it`s just a pipe dreamer`s way of killing themselfs.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Mr Hughes, you have been very misinformed… The designer/builder of the BD-5, Jim Bede, is quite alive and is a highly skilled and very experienced aerotech engineer who has designed over a dozen aircraft, many of which are in use today by major corporations and private owners. Yes, the BD-5 has had some fatal crashes but official investigations by the FAA have shown that each of these deaths were the reults of poor maintenance, inadequate operator knowledge, or in one case death of the pilot before the crash due to medical problems. The BD-5 and some other Bede aircraft were kit planes which are by their very nature temperamental. People who do not how to mechanically support and operate an airplane should not own a professionally built one, let alone a kit type. For more information just google “Jim Bede” or go to wikipedia and start doing some research.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Zer0 enginering-grounded dead trap-sheet metal does not a JET make.Wings are all wrong,weight dis is NONvorsu.DEAD DEAD and DEAD as a project and as personas.India is the HOT bed of MINI jet aircraft-it is to put as many plots in as many minis as possible and they have.USA has lagged in real battle AIRbattle feild cost perHEAD.Howard hughes JR turned away from USA after they trashed his moon shoot and he my friend fly away in a brit BACII that he saved from a trash pile.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Test after test failed,naddly flew at all.AT speed it is a jet after all it snowballed and moth balled after that.Bede lists as gone but he was never the tester anyway and the project got picked up and dropped many times before the NONtechs learned their part.MINI JET tech is all over seas at thie time and will be a leading issue in airbattle feild as many heads in the air as cheap as possible and drones are cheap as dirty broadcasters with carbinefiber scorelights.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
MINIs are key and that is the subject,but this mini was a pipe dream-a crack pipe=crackplane