Bede BD-10
Overview
Jim Bede
James R. "Jim" Bede is an aircraft designer, who is often credited with the creation of the modern kitplane market. He has designed well over a dozen aircraft since the 1960s, but a string of business failures have kept most of these designs out of widespread use. -Bede Aviation:Bede was raised in...
's attempt to introduce the world's first kit-built
Homebuilt aircraft
Also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, homebuilt aircraft 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.-Overview:...
jet-powered general aviation
General aviation
General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...
supersonic aircraft. After several years of testing and modifications, the project was taken over by investors in order to produce fully completed civilian and military training aircraft, but these projects were never realized. Five examples were built in total and three of these crashed. Only two examples remain, both unflyable.
The genesis of the BD-10 came about after the Bede BD-5 project in the 1970s, when the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
(FTC) entered Jim Bede
Jim Bede
James R. "Jim" Bede is an aircraft designer, who is often credited with the creation of the modern kitplane market. He has designed well over a dozen aircraft since the 1960s, but a string of business failures have kept most of these designs out of widespread use. -Bede Aviation:Bede was raised in...
into a consent decree
Consent decree
A consent decree is a final, binding judicial decree or judgment memorializing a voluntary agreement between parties to a suit in return for withdrawal of a criminal charge or an end to a civil litigation...
, forbidding him from accepting down payments for aircraft for a period of ten years.