On 14 Nov 2003 21:26:44 -0800, wrote:

I'm very surprised by this. My impression of the BD-5, from the early years,
was that something like 1 in 4 crashed on it's first flight, and the fatality
rate was 10,000 per 100,000 flight hours.

The original "A" wing is, from what I understand, a killer. The upgraded,
longer, "B" wing has a lot better record. Jeff Schoeder gave his personal
positive experience with the handling, and his comments are similar to
those I've heard from Dave "Hammer" Harris, who used to fly a -5J in
airshows (and is currently flying a jet-powered Caproni sailplane).

The problem with the BD-5 is that it was marketed as a homebuilt everyone
would be able to build and everyone would be able to fly. Those aspects
never came true, but it's apparently a pretty good plane if you can make
the powerplant reliable.

I've got the accident reports downloaded, and hopefully will post a cursory
analysis in a day or so. I may download the RV-3 reports as well, so I can
contrast the accident statistics for three single seaters: BD-5, RV-3, and
Fly Baby.

Ron Wanttaja