1/72 ARII BD-5’s 

by Tony Landis

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Designed in the 1970’s by Jim Bede, the BD-5 was probably the most famous of all of his designs.  Most people remember the BD-5 from the opening scene in the 1983 James Bond movie ‘Octopussy’ or from various airshow appearances of the Bud Light Microjet or the Coors Light Silver Bullet.

   While in between various model projects, I was looking for something small and simple to work on.  ARII had just released the old LS BD-5 kit so I decided that would be the perfect one to do. The ARII release comes with four complete kits, two BD-5B’s and two BD-5J’s.  Not a bad deal for $6.  I built the BD-5B straight from the box using the kit decals, but I’m always on the lookout for something a little different and I happened to come upon a shot of the ‘Pepsi Microjet’ flown by Micro Aviation Services. I contacted MAS and they helped out with the various markings necessary to do their aircraft. 

Click on images below to see larger images

Rather than having a hole in the bottom of the BD-5J, I modified one of the display stands so it would attach through the exhaust. It was certainly a challenge to mask and paint something so tiny, but it sure was worth the effort and made an interesting contrast to the next project, which was repainting a 1/18 scale F-104.

Tony

Photos and text © by Tony Landis