Jim Bede

American aviation inventor

James R. Bede (April 17, 1933 – July 9, 2015) was an American aircraft designer and developer, particularly noted for his development of influential, fast, efficient, light aircraft, including his BD-1 (forerunner of the Grumman-American line), and the BD-4, BD-5 and BD-10 kitplanes. He designed well over a dozen aircraft starting in the 1960s, but a string of business failures, and legal, technical and safety problems kept most of these designs out of widespread use.²

From Wikipedia’s article on Jim Bede (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Apr 17, 1933, died Jul 9, 2015.¹