"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
. ..

"Juan Jimenez" wrote in message
...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"BobR" wrote

Probably lots of different reasons why it has not achieved the flying
success it should have but you hit on the biggest and probably most
important, no suitable engine. Yeah, I know that there are now many
good engines that could power it well but its time was then and this is
now. It was ahead of its time then and the needed engine wasn't
available.

I don't think that is quite true. There may be better engines now, but
that is only part of the problem with the piston engine in the BD-5.

The link escapes me now, but there were tremendous problems with
torsional harmonics, tearing apart everything, all the way along the
drive train.

No BD-5 has suffered an inflight failure involving either the airframe or
the drive train hardware.

Correct, but that statement avoids the issue. There are/were unsolved
torsional problems.

No, that _is_ the issue. No "torsional problems" caused any issues with
incidents or accidents, period. To suggest that this issue is one of the
aircraft's shortcomings is completely incorrect.

During the so-called development period for the design they fought a
number of problems including broken drive shafts, broken engine mounts,
etc. which were results of various torsional issues which were never
completely resolved.

http://www.prime-mover.org/Engines/T.../contact1.html

That, Kyle, is a very old document. The drive issues were resolved a LONG
time ago and a man by the name of Jerry Kauth has made a good living over
the years selling the version of the drive system that was developed long
ago to address any issues they found.

You need to refer to the BD-5 specific documentation, not something someone
else wrote that happened to reference information about the BD-5.

The only reason there were no in-flight failures of drivetrain hardware is
that the people involved with the design, both the Bede team and tinkerers
over the last 30 years have been dilligent and lucky enough to identify
failures and pending failures on the ground, rather than discovering the
failures in the very rarely demonstrated airborne mode of the design.

Design testing. What a concept. Tell me something I don't know.




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