The Bede BD-12 was an American

homebuilt aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

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 ...

and produced by

Bede Aircraft Bede Aircraft Corporation was founded by aeronautical engineer Jim Bede in Cleveland in 1961 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 adva ...

Medina, Ohio Medina ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Medina County, Ohio, United States. The population was 26,094 at the 2020 Census. It lies about 33 miles (53 km) south of Cleveland and 23 miles (37 km) west of Akron within the Clevelan ...

, introduced in the 1990s. The aircraft was intended to be supplied as a kit for amateur construction, but only one was ever built.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook, Fifth Edition'', page 346. BAI Communications, 15 July 1998. It first flew in 1995.

Design and development

Designed as a scaled-up

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 ...

, the BD-12 featured a cantilever

low-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, a two-seats-in-

side-by-side configuration Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

enclosed cockpit under a gull-wing canopy, retractable

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

and a single engine in pusher configuration. The aircraft was made from fibre-reinforced plastic composite materials. Its span wing, mounted flaps and had a wing area of . The standard engines used were the Continental O-200A or the

Lycoming O-320 The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of naturally aspirated, air-cooled, four-cylinder, direct-drive engines produced by Lycoming Engines. They are commonly used on light aircraft such as the Cessna 172 and Piper Cherokee. Different variants ...

powerplant. The aircraft had a typical empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the payload for the pilot, passenger and baggage was . The standard day, sea level, no wind, takeoff with a engine was and the landing roll was . The company that currently owns the rights to the design, BedeCorp, indicates that production was not started due to the cost of tooling and the lack of funds. The design was further developed into the Bede BD-14, a four-seat version.

Operational history

In April 2015 no examples were registered in the United States with the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

, although one had been registered to the designer at one time.

Variants

;BD-12B :Version with Continental O-200A engine. ;BD-12C :Version with

engine.

Specifications (BD-12)

References

External links

* {{Bede aircraft BD-12 1990s United States sport aircraft 1990s United States civil utility aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft Low-wing aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1995