BUDD DAVISSON'S
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BUDD DAVISSON'S
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BD-5 Pirep
Air Progress, November, 1974
The BD-5 Actually Flies
Okay all you skeptics out there (and I was one of the strongest),
let it be known here and not that, not only does the BD-5 fly,
but about 90 per cent of us owe Jim Bede a gigantic apology. He
has managed to build a tiny little wing stability platform that
shows more thought ingenuity and out and out genius than anything
general aviation has seen for years.
It still has some bugs to iron out in the engine department but,
other wise, the BD-5 , as we flew it, represents the first quantum
leap forward in light aircraft design since WWII. As I was hoisting
my fanny up out of the little cockpit after flying it, all I could
think of was, "Jim Bede, I'm sorry for all those rotten things
I said about you and your airplane." He's made a believer
out of me.
You have to be a yak-herder in the Himalaya boonies not to know
the saga of the BD-5 by heart. Every magazine with a circulation
of more than 15 has run at least one story about the BD-5 and
it's rotund, hyperactive designer-builder-promoter, Jim Bede,
and therein may lie one of the original seeds of the great Bede
controversy, as it now rages. Too much was said too early in the
game, promises were made, performance figures quoted and money
taken. So, when things didn't go like clockwork, the BD buying
public got a little bit ticked off. (Witness the lynch mobs lurking
in dark corners at Oshkosh, lying in wait for him.)
There is no doubt that many early Bede claims were optimistic.
No they were more than optimistic, they were outlandish (270 mph
was promised t one point).
I sat in the bleachers with the rest of the aviation community
and watched the whole Bede experience develop. I booed and hissed
right along with the others. I can clearly remember receiving
a three-view of the very early Micro and my first impression was
that Jim Bede was absolutely and irrevocably out of his tree.
The entire thing just wasn't possible. All of us sidewalk engineers
gawked at the early V-tailed fiberglass prototype and nodded knowingly.
It was generally agreed that, if it did fly, it would have the
inherent stability of a bongo board and the handling characteristics
of a Whiffle ball.
After a while the old "it will never fly" crowd changed
their tune to "it may fly but only a NASA test pilot can
handle it," You see, had to find something else to gripe
about because that chainsaw with wings was flitting around at
far too many airshows for us to maintain credibility in the face
of fact. It did fly and appeared to fly well.
Naturally, there is only one way to find out if "Joe average
pilot" can fly it and that is to snuggle down into it and
go aviating, so we asked, "Can we fly your airplane?"
The answer was, "of course." First Bede had to check
a few things out. Next month maybe. When it was next month, the
answer was in a few weeks, then it went back up to months. This
went on for over two years. It looked like a classic holding action
against a press that might leak the news that the BD-5 was nothing
more than a cylindrical coffin with retractable handles.
At Oshkosh the word came down: we could come down to Newton and
fly his airplane at our convenience. At our convenience, really?
We didn't begin getting excited until we called him and he said,
"Sure, how about tomorrow?"
The second I stepped off the plane at Wichita, I knew it was trouble.
It was blowing about 35 knots in the middle of the night. They
were probably chaining the cattle to the ground. The next morning
Les Bervin, BD test pilot, confirmed our suspicions and allowed
as how it wasn't the best day to be flying the BD-5 for the first
time, but it was okay to fly the BD-5T trainer. There two-ton
Tinker-Toy trainer is almost as ingenious as the BD-5 itself.
Using a systems of springs and booms, they have hung a clapped-out
BD-5 (early victim of a journey through a ditch) on the front
bumper of a Dodge pick-up truck. The springs counterbalance the
weight of the boom almost exactly, so any lift generated by those
ridiculous little wing panels will life it off the ground and
let you shoot touch-and-goes and make gentle turns to your heart's
content.
Looking at the truck, the airframe and the rail-straight windsock,
I suggested we draw straws. I lost. The other two guys locked
themselves in the truck cab, leaving me to be the first to find
out what a Dodge-powered BD-5 was like. Rich strapped me into
the trainer and explained rotations speeds and offered a few helpful
hints as he was putting the headset down over my twitching ears.
My first flight in the trainer was sort of hop, jiggle, bounce,
scrub. I over-corrected, over-rotated and over-wound just about
everything. the side stick initially seemed incredibly sensitive,
then, magically, about half way down the runway things seemed
to smooth out. The second run had me hopping off the ground like
a frog on a hot rock, but by concentrating on the runway in front
of me and forgetting where my hand was resting, I could even keep
the wing down and cancel out the crosswind, which by this time
was a solid 40 knots. The third time around I rotated off almost
like a normal airplane. I was flying big gentle S-turns all the
way down the runway while I called out my height to Rich in the
cab to see how close I was. The fourth run was unnecessary; I
felt like I knew what I was doing. The rest of the guys had very
nearly the same reaction.
What the BD-Dodge combination showed me was, first of all, takeoff
happens very quickly and it is easy to over-rotate. then it was
even easier to over-rotate the rotation, which caused a little
bit of saw-toothed flight for a while. the most important thing
I learned was that by focusing my eyes straight ahead and flying
it like one of those fly-by-wire games in the bus depot, I could
eliminate most of my over-controlling difficulties. It is strictly
a visual affair because there is absolutely no fell or pressure
in the control stick. We each had a chance to look through the
flight manual, but Les sat us all down and went methodically down
the list so each of us knew what to do when. Besides all the usual
numbers, there were a few things I found even more important to
remember. The first was, if the engine quit, we couldn't restart
it. This particular bird had the starter ring gear removed and
they had to fire it up with a pull-cord. Also, the clutch and
the drive system is such that the prop freewheels when the engine
isn't running. Even though the prop is turning, the engine isn't.
that didn't sound too bad, but then he mentioned that if we touched
zero G for even a second, the float-type carburetor they had temporarily
installed would choke the engine deader than a mackerel. well,
if nothing else, I realized that kind of information would make
me tiptoe around while doing aerobatics.
There aren't a whole lot of airplanes around in which you can
actually retract the landing gear while sitting on the ground
for cockpit check, but then, there aren't too many airplanes six
guys can pick up and put on sawhorses either. That is where we
sat while familiarizing ourselves with the cockpit. From the instant
I stiff-legged myself down into the cavern underneath the panel
I was knocked out by the logic of the cockpit. Everything is in
the right place, easy to use and figure out. The fuel controls
are ahead of the left console and all the electrical stuff-mags,
master, etc.- on the right one. the landing gear is a healthy
looking T-handle affair that would look more at home in a jacked-up
GTO. It juts up between your legs about where the control stick
should be and the flap handle is right next to it. The control
stick is shaped like a Baby Ruth you had squeezed in your hand,
and sticks up out the right console. Only the trim, which is right
next to the throttle, and the stick appear or feel anything but
perfectly placed.
Once up on the sawhorses, we amused ourselves with the landing
gear. It takes a healthy tug to get it started up, but more than
the, you have to keep it moving so the inertia of the gear helps
to get the handle over center. If you don't keep your shoulder
behind it, it will stop halfway and you'll never get it up. When
you pull and keep on pulling, you are rewarded (or surprised)
with a healthy whack on the bottom of the fuselage. There is absolutely
no doubt that the hear is up or down. When it slams into position,
the airplane practically jumps off of the sawhorses. It's like
being inside of a giant switchblade. Les had us do it without
moving the stick so we wouldn't be jumping around in the air when
retracting the gear. it was good practice, but it didn't work.
we figured the way to beat the wind was to get up before it did,
which still didn't work. At 5:30 the next morning, with my eyes
clamped shut to keep my precious bodily fluids from leaking out,
I staggered to the door to see that it was still blowing up a
mini-storm outside. We thought we'd had it, but Les stuck a finger
into the breeze and said, "Roll it out; let's go flying."
A few minutes later I found myself fiddling with chokes, mixtures
and mags and hopping over expansion joints in the taxiway as I
wended my way down to the runway. In taxiing, the engine idled
at nearly 3000 rpm; it sounded like a lawnmower trying to run
me down. I pressed the transmit button on the top of the throttle
and said, "I'm ready to go." My headphones answered,
'"Good-bye."
Looking back at it, I'll have to admit to not remembering much
about that take-off because it all happened so quickly. The engine
revved to about 5000 rpm immediately and the 52 hp behind me started
kicking me down the runway at an astonishing rate. At 50 mph I
started picking up the nosewheel, which skipped a couple of times;
as I rocketed to 60-65 I was up and away. The take-off was almost
toy-like. I bobbed around a bit, more from surprise than from
anything else. As soon as I started watching what I was doing
and got out of ground turbulence at 10 feet, it settled and felt
almost as solid as a Cessna 150 would have in the same wind. At
around 75-80 I reached down for the landing gear, completely forgetting
the keep-on-pullin' retraction technique. I gave it a cursory
jerk. As the handle came to a halt in the midway position, I called
myself a few choice names and rammed it forward to lock it down
again. While I was busy jamming the gear handle, I forgot where
my right hand was and unconsciously tweaked the stick. This caused
the airplane to jump around. When I gave the gear a healthy pull
it obediently leaped into the wells. As the gear came up and I
let the flaps up slowly, the speed wrapped up to 1-- mph pronto.
The best-rate-of-climb speed was 90 mph, but I was keeping it
at around 100 for cooling. We climber 1200 feet per minute with
52 hp blatting away behind, the tack working its way up to 6500
rpm and the 182 camera plane disappearing fast.
The most surprising thing about those first few minutes of flight
is that everything seemed so normal. I didn't even bother to look
out at those tooth-pick wings or marvel at the incredible visibility.
It just felt that was the way airplanes should be this was an
airplane and it just flew like one. I wanted it to feel strange
and exotic, but things fit together too well.
Set your hand on the chair next to you right now and make a list.
Now wiggle it left-to-right while keeping your elbow stuck to
the chair. If you don't move the top of our fist more than half
an inch or so, you'll see what it is like to fly a BD-5. there
is no noticeable resistance and practically no movement of the
stick. If you twitch your hand an inch to the side, you've just
done a roll. Move it an inch or so back and you loop. Now, that
sounds like it's sensitive, but for some reason or another it
doesn't work out that way. It's got to be the most natural way
to shepherd an airplane around I have ever seen.
Les had sworn that the stalls were nothing to write books about
and he was right. In any configuration it would shake, buffet,
leap and groan as you crept up to the stall, One wing would unload
as it would roll off in one direction of the other. I'd keep the
stick completely back and porpoise ahead, using aileron and rudder
to keep everything square with the world. the instant-I mean the
very instant-the elevator was released, the little beastie would
be flying again. Clean it was stalling at about 65, and dirty
at about 55.
I cursed the zero-G carburetor as I sucked the nose up and tweaked
my hand left to watch the sky and ground swap places. With just
a little inverted capability-just a couple of seconds-you could
drag the rolls out into long, sensuous affairs over which you'd
have infinite control. I'll have to wangle another flight when
they put the new carburetor on, I guess. you can roll fast or
your can roll slow, four points or eight, left or right, and barely
move your hand. To the right, rolls are just a little more difficult,
because your wrist works more naturally inboard than it does outboard.
Full aileron deflection is only about a 2-inch twist of your wrist,
but you almost never need it. The roll rate is fast, about 150
degrees per second, which is just a tad slower than a roundwing
Pitts. I can't begin to describe the total precision of these
controls. They don't even come close to being sensitive, but they
put more control in the palm of your hand than any other airplane
I know.
Now, almost nobody reading this is going to believe my next statement,
yet it's absolutely true: the BD-5 is one of the most stable little
airplanes flying. When I'd set it up hands-off and then pulse
the stick-just bash it forward or back-the nose would come up
and then-bam-come back to level and not move again. There was
almost no sign of oscillations of any kind. The same if true of
yaw: punch and rudder, and the nose snaps back as soon as you
let go. In roll it seems just a little more neutral. The wings
stay pretty much where you put them. I tested all this stability
out by grooving around for a while as I used both hands to adjust
my headset and boom mike, to eliminate some communications problems
(which turned out to be my inability to read "volume"
one the radio face).
The BD-5's high thrust line means a nose-down pitch with poser.
(the nose comes up when you back off the throttle). Speed and
power changes do give a fair amount of trim change, but I had
been flying for a while before I noticed that I had been unconsciously
moving the trim control with the thumb of my throttle hand all
along.
I knew Bede had done complete spin tests, and Les had told us
to go ahead and spin it. But I'll admit that I put spins off until
I worked up my nerve. Finally, I got the power back, got the stick
back, and kicked rudder as it stalled. Instantaneously it snapped
over on its back and twisted downward into a near-vertical spin.
the first turn was more of a snap roll, the second turn was very
oscillatory, with the nose coming up fairly high. They the nose
dropped to about 60 degrees and stabilized in a very fast spin.
Sixty degrees, by the way, looks like you're going straight down.
Les had said that the airplane had a distinct stick-free spin
mode, here the reduced drag of neutralize controls caused the
speed to increase and the spin to wrap up very tight. That's why
it needs a classic NACA spin recovery: bash the stick well forward
and nail opposite rudder hard.
Naturally, I managed to botch up the recovery. I moved the stick
forward too slowly at the end of three turns, and it immediately
cracked around in two more lightning-fast turns before I got the
stick far enough forward. I recovered in less than half a turn,
going absolutely straight down. I instinctively loaded a slight
positive G on it to keep that carburetor happy, and, in so doing,
got a slight secondary spin in the other direction. But that topped
almost immediately. the second time I spun it, I did what Les
had told me to do, and it popped out instantly. It's a very predictable-spinning
airplane, but you have to move like you mean business to stop
it where you want it.
On the way back into the pattern, I made a couple of speed runs
at 5,000 feet AGL. (9,000 feet density altitude for that day).
I was showing an even 155 mph cruise, and that works out to 177.
Later, Peter did the same thing down lower, at 1,000 feet, and
got a solid 175 mph indicated, which works out to 188.
I knew I couldn't stay up all day and avoid the landing. I flew
a wide 360-degree overhead pattern, coming downwind at 100 mph
and base at 90. It had taken me forever to get into the pattern,
because power off, at 85 mph, I was only showing about 380 fpm
descent. I was beginning to wonder about getting down before lunch.
Les had said the gear worked like spoilers, and when I dropped
it, I saw what he meant. With gear and flaps down I had to use
just a tad of power to fight the wind as I turned final for the
taxiway we were using the land. (It was smoother than the runway.)
The pitch stability came in handy for holding 85 right on the
money as I jockeyed the power just a little to stay on glide path.
I kept reminding myself what the view over the nose in the trainer
had looked like as I came closer to the ground. the wind tried
to boggle me around but a tweak here and a tweak there kept everything
perfectly lined up. As the pavement started to get closer, I gently
(very gently) started to flare. The second I moved the nose, the
airplane stopped coming down. So, I relaxed a bit and started
feeling for the ground. Lower. Lower. Lower. Suddenly I knew I
was only a foot or so off and I started a game with the wind.
I tried to hold it up as the wind stared to bat me around. Plunk,
and the mains were on. I tried to hold the nose hear up, but the
flaps were too much for it and it dropped onto the pavement anyway.
We were on the ground at around 60 mph. The roll out was easy
to control with the rudder and I didn't need to use the brake
at all until I was ready to turn into the parking area.
Well, I think we've discovered what kind of pilot it takes to
fly the BD-5. Any proficient 150-hour pilot could learn to handle
it, but only if he had already developed certain skills and mental
attitudes. He'd better be an accurate pilot. He can't make vague,
unmetered control movements or be only fuzzily aware of what he
sees over the nose. The airplane is capable of absolute precision,
and to make consistently smooth landings and takeoffs, the pilot
must use that precision. Most pilots are sloppy; they'll have
to de-slop themselves before the fly the Five. the guy who takes
great pride in making nothing but squeakers right on the centerline
won't have any trouble at all. This type of mental attitude is
totally independent of flight time, and can be present or absent
regardless of how fat the logbook may be.
Flying the trainer would be the best bet for transitioning into
the Bede. There you get the super-low ground attitude, seating
position, and control response all in one package. Otherwise a
glider-especially something like a Blanik or a 1-34-will give
you a perfect learning situation for the supine seat and ground-hugging
landing attitude. an older Yankee would give you the basic control
responses-the brake-only directional control, and similar stall
characteristics., (the BD-5's are far better.)
Asked how I feel about it, I can only say that now I wish I hadn't
let my skepticism keep me from putting down my $400 deposit for
a production model. Oh, well . . . Bede probably has something
else up his sleeve, and you can bet I'll put my money where my
doubts are this time.
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