French development studio AzurPoly has released its first aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The BD-5J is a single-engine “microjet” and with a weight of just 358.8 lb (162.7 kg) it’s considered to be the world’s smallest jet aircraft.
Designed as a homebuilt kit aircraft, the BD-5J is part of a series of jet airplanes from American designer Jim Bede. This series of airplanes went through a convoluted development and commercial process that saw only a few hundred of the more than 5.000 sold kits to ever be completed. Nowadays, there are only a few dozen flying, but the BD-5J managed to still become famous due to its appearance in Octopussy, the James Bond film.
AzurPoly is now bringing this curious little machine to the virtual world of Flight Simulator, promising an accurate flight model that was developed in partnership with BD-5 pilots, fully functioning avionics, checklists, 4K PBR textures, custom sounds and a selection of 5 liveries, including a famous one from Bud Light, which sadly crashed due to technical issues.
The developers have made the entire cockpit operational. All instruments and switches work, but this is a simple aircraft, so don’t expect to see many of them. From the official product images, we can see that this airplane appears to be fairly well modeled, although some interior textures look a bit low-resolution. In any case, this is a curious airplane that should be fun to play around with in Flight Simulator with its tiny jet engine.
The 𝗕𝗗-𝟱𝗝 is now available on SimMarket for just around $15 / 15€, and will be made available on the MSFS Marketplace soon.
If this type of airplane is your cup of team, you may want to check out the similar SubSonex JSX-2, a small personal jet that was also recently released for MSFS.
