Bede Aircraft Corporation was founded by aeronautical engineer

Jim Bede James R. Bede (April 17, 1933 – July 9, 2015) was an American aircraft designer. He designed well over a dozen aircraft starting in the 1960s, but a string of business failures kept most of these designs out of widespread use. Bede Avia ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...

to produce the BD-1 kit aircraft, which eventually became the American Aviation Corporation's AA-1. The company also created and produced a number of advanced kit planes including the famous

Bede BD-5 The Bede BD-5 Micro is a series of small, single-seat homebuilt aircraft created in the late 1960s by US aircraft designer Jim Bede and introduced to the market primarily in kit form by the now-defunct Bede Aircraft Corporation in the early 19 ...

(

pusher propeller In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

driven) and BD-5J (turbojet driven). The BD-5J has held the Guinness record as the World's Smallest Jet Aircraft for more than a quarter century. Versions of it saw use in various

Budweiser Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, part of AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. ''Budweiser'' may also refer to an unrela ...

commercials (the Bud Light Jet, which was lost in an inflight fire and crash unrelated to airshow work). The tiny jet also appeared in two

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

movies; ''

Octopussy ''Octopussy'' is a 1983 spy film and the thirteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It is the sixth to star Roger Moore as the MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by John Glen and the screenplay was written by G ...

'' starring Sir Roger Moore, and later in a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

, hanging from the wall of Q's workshop in ''

Die Another Day ''Die Another Day'' is a 2002 spy film and the twentieth film in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It was produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and directed by Lee Tamahori. The fourth and final film st ...

'' starring Pierce Brosnan as Agent 007. A later design, the BD-10 powered by the same engine ( GE J-85) used on Lear Jet business jets, claimed to be the first supersonic personal jet built from a kit. Five examples were built in total and three of these crashed. Only two examples remain, both unflyable. The second aircraft was built at the Peregrine Aircraft Company in Minden Nevada. During a flight Test at Douglas County Airport, the aircraft far exceeded the maximum safe flight test speed, and broke up inflight, killing pilot Mike VanWagonen. It was estimated that this aircraft experienced catastrophic

vertical stabilizer A vertical stabilizer or tail fin is the static part of the vertical tail of an aircraft. The term is commonly applied to the assembly of both this fixed surface and one or more movable rudders hinged to it. Their role is to provide control, s ...

failure, due to the excess speed during the flight. None of them ever broke the

sound barrier The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, th ...

. This aircraft was featured on the cover of Aviation Week in June 1994, with a full pilots report.

Aircraft

External links

Current company website
* * * * {{Bede aircraft Aircraft manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Ohio Manufacturing companies established in 1961 1961 establishments in Ohio