Most aircraft engineers, tasked with designing a new STOL aircraft, wouldn’t opt to drill 160,000 holes in the wing and utilize two piston engines to drive a single pusher propeller.
But then again, most engineers aren’t Jim Bede.
Bede XBD-2: Experimental Prototype for Unique Technologies
The clean-sheet aircraft design sought to improve aerodynamics by incorporating its twin engines in the aft fuselage.
Key Takeaways:
- Jim Bede designed the experimental XBD-2 aircraft to integrate and test several unconventional technologies for superior performance.
- Its unique features included two piston engines stacked in the aft fuselage driving a single shrouded pusher propeller via a complex belt system, and a Boundary Layer Control (BLC) system with 160,000 pinholes in the wings.
- Despite demonstrating impressive performance, such as a significantly lowered stall speed, the complex design and its unique systems were not carried forward into Bede's later aircraft, with only one prototype ever built.
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