BD-5 Serial # 22 was bought near Oakland, California. These pictures are a little old but they accurately reflect the state of the airframe. SN #22 was bought as "scrap" from Tom Johnson, disassembled, etc. The registration and airworthiness certificate were turned in and the aircraft was deregistered, as per instructions from the widow of the original builder, who passed away some time ago. It came with a custom BD-5 trailer built from Bede Aircraft Corp. plans, which needs extensive refurbishing and is in dire need of a few coats of paint. It will be my job to assemble the aircraft, register it again, get a new temporary airworthiness certificate and fly off the test hours with the help of a professional test pilot. After that, I hope to take the bird to Sun-N-Fun and Oshkosh in 2000. My ultimate goal to fly it from the southern tip of Florida to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico (and back, of course) sometime during the year 2000.
The previous owner of SN #22 was an engine expert. He used the BD-5, with the help of Keith Hinshaw and a few other pilots, as an engine test bed for his projects. In this picture you can see the solution that he came up with for controlling engine compartment temperature. The right engine compartment door has been modified with a NACA duct and an electric fan. This fan is operated only when the aircraft is on the ground. You can't see it on this picture, but the airflow into the engine and engine compartment is through ducts at the root of the wing. In this picture you can also see that the fuselage is unstretched. The aircraft has never had weight and balance or CG problems. You can't see it in this picture, but the cockpit is fully equipped with instrumentation and avionics, and is almost IFR-capable (needs an attitude indicator and navigation/strobe lights).
This image shows a more complete view of the airframe, with the engine compartment cooling fan. You'll notice that it as a flush comm antenna on the tail, like the one I installed in the vertical stabilizer of my previous kit (the installation is covered in the construction log available from the main page). The propeller is custom made, 48" diameter, wood. If you take a close look, you can see that behind the spar, in the wing root, there are two fuel lines. This aircraft is set up for fuel injection, with a fuel feed line coming from the fuel tank pickup and a return line coming from the custom throttle body fuel injection system that was installed on the engine (last one was an AMW three-cylinder engine). You'll also notice a louver under the rear canopy (above the engine compartment door, also visible in the picture above this one). This louver draws air into the fuel injection system to equalize the air pressure inside the engine compartment for the fuel injection system. Also, the fuselage today has a light surface corrosion which has to be removed. The black paint on the vertical stab and rudder is primer. I plan to remove all primer and polish the entire airframe after treating it with Alumiprep.
This is a picture of Keith Hinshaw and Tom Johnson, the previous owner of this BD-5. Keith is in the cockpit, Tom is to the right. Keith was involved in the fl
