While the new Xenoah engine was being tested, Bede decided to create an unconventional variant of the BD-5 with a small jet engine. The result was the BD-5J, a 300 mph (480 km/h) aircraft that looked fast while sitting on the ramp. The design used the Sermel TRS-18-046 turbojet (now Microturbo, a division of Turbomeca, in itself a division of Groupe Safran), which produced 225 lb of thrust. The original engines were produced under license by Ames Industrial in the US.
Bob Bishop had purchased 20 BD-5J kits as soon as they had appeared, and many of the flying examples started life in this batch of twenty. Many of these were completed over the years, and a number have been involved in crashes, usually due to lack of proper maintenance, insufficient training and knowledge of the systems and their operation, and in one case an incapacitating medical condition which led to a crash where investigators concluded the pilot must have died before the crash.
Versions from the original batch became a popular airshow fixture, and Bishop has gone on to log more than 1,500 hours in his jets, which he now operates for military customers as a cruise missile surrogate. Throughout the 1980s until 1991, Coors flew two of them as the "Silver Bullets." Budweiser also had a BD-5J called the Bud Light Jet, but that contract has long expired, the aircraft was lost after an incorrectly specified fuel flow sensor burst in mid-flight, causing a fire in the engine compartment (the pilot traded speed for altitude, bailed out and was unharmed; the aircraft was lost). The aircraft also appeared in the opening sequence of the James Bond film, Octopussy.
The last BD-5J that remained on the airshow circuit, Scott Manning's Stinger Jet, crashed on June 16, 2006 at Ottawa/Carp Airport, Canada, while practicing for an air show, killing pilot Manning. The month of June 2006 was very bad for BD-5J's—an Acrojet Special BD-5J property of Aerial Productions, Inc. impacted trees the morning June 27 on final approach to the Ocean City Municipal Airport in Ocean City, Maryland, killing pilot Chuck Lischer, a highly experienced professional airshow pilot. The airplane was involved in radar testing as part of its services to the military as a certified cruise missile surrogate.
The BD-5J has also held the Guinness record for the World's Smallest Jet for more than 25 years. Bob Bishop originally garnered the record with one of his jets, and in November 2004 the record changed hands to Juan Jiménez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, whose BD-5J weighed in at 358.8 lbs (162.8 kg) empty weight, 80 lbs (36 kg) lighter than Bishop's jet. The primary difference that led to the decrease in weight is the use of an earlier Microturbo turbojet, the 022 Couguar, which weighs 68 lbs (31 kg), is simpler than the TRS-18 and does not require a high pressure fuel system with all of its associated hardware.
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