Jim Bede - Record Flights and Experiments

Record Flights and Experiments

During the BD-1 design Bede also worked on a number of other designs. One of these was the XBD-2, an experimental boundary layer control design based on a system designed by the Aerophysics Department of Mississippi State University. The system used 164,000 holes drilled into the surface of the wing to suck air from the boundary layer into the interior of the wing, thereby reducing skin friction for better performance, as well as keeping the boundary layer "attached" over a wider variety of angle of attacks and thereby increasing lift during high-angle flight and doubling maximum lift as a result. Other interesting design features were the use of two engines driving a common pusher propeller, aluminum honeycomb panels, and fiberglass landing gear struts. After 50 hours of testing the aircraft was donated to the Experimental Aircraft Association.

The basic layout of the XBD-2 was also used in the BD-3 pusher design, but this did not progress beyond paper studies. An "executive version" was also designed as the BD-7, again without progressing past the early design stage.

After being forced from what became American Aviation, Bede tried his hand at a record breaking around-the-world flight in a specially modified Schweizer 2-32 powered glider he called the BD-2. He nicknamed the airplane "LOVE", a contraction of "Low Orbit, Very Efficient". The aircraft was modified to dramatically increase fuel tankage to 565 gallons (2,140 l), which included the addition of two large tanks in the fuselage, sealing the wings to turn them into tanks, and adding tankage on the wing-tips as well. It was completed in April 1966 (although other sources say 1968), and while he did not attempt its two-hop-around-the-world trip, Bede set several distance and endurance records, including a 70-hour endurance record in October 1969. This flight only ended after an electrical failure, just under 9,000 miles (14,500 km) being covered by that point.