They did test the BD-5, but to what extent I'm not sure. I used to
work at the airline with a guy that flew Jim Bede's DC-3 for him. And
he did say the BD group was having a ball spending everyones deposit
money. They let him fly one of the BD's with the Xenoa engine, which
was almost as fast as the jet. He said when he flew it, there was a
problem with the carb, where if you hit a bump than made the plane go
zero G or slightly negative, the engine would quit and all you would
hear was a hum coming from the prop as the drive system disengaged.
He also told me that the impression he got from the plane was that if
it had ever got into the hands of all the people that bought a kit, it
would have killed a lot of pilots.
Then on another occasion, I ate lunch with a guy that flew a jet BD-5,
and it had issues also. The one he flew he said when he would add
power, the whole fuselage seemed to suck in and make noises like a
beer can crushing inward. Then after he had flown for a while, he
looked down and noticed he had fuel sloshing around him under his
seat. Those issues could have been fixed most probably, but every time
I've talked to someone that's actually flown a BD5, it's always an
exciting story to say the least.
Rich


On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 07:53:58 -0800 (PST), flybd5
wrote:

In April of 2007 a Mr. Harvey Swack published a letter attacking the
"scruples" of Jim Bede, allegedly because Jim Bede did not flight test
the aircraft. The letter was in response to an article the son of a
BD-5 builder wrote about his experiences with his dad and the building
and flying of his BD-5. Mr. Swack then added: "I cringed when I read
the story because this family's tragedy could have been prevented if
the designer had any scruples at all."

I sent the following to Sport Aviation in response to that letter, and
it appears the response was never published. Because of that I am
publishing the entire response here.

-----

Dear Editor,

In response to Mr. Harvey Swack's letter in the Member's Forum section
of EAA Sport Aviation, I feel compelled to point out to your readers
that the web site of the BD-5 Network (www.bd5.com) contains a copy of
the content of a formal paper entitled "BD-5 FLIGHT TEST PROGRAM
REPORT" authored by the late Mr. Les Berven, former Chief Test Pilot
of Bede Aircraft Inc. This paper was submitted to and published by the
Society of Experimental Test Pilots. It is my understanding that Mr.
Berven remained an active test pilot and member of the Society until
his passing in December of 2001.

I performed an extensive search on the Internet, and could not find
any similar documents for any aircraft designed by Mr. Swack, or any
aircraft associated with the name of Mr. Swack. I also checked the
definition of the word "scruples" on the Princeton University online
lexical database for the English language (Wordnet), and the result I
was presented with is: "motivation deriving logically from ethical or
moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions."

I believe any further interpretation of this information should be
left to the readers of your fine publication. Thank you for the
opportunity to express our viewpoint on this matter.

Sincerely,
Juan E. Jiménez
Director, The BD-5 Network
http://www.bd5.com