In the absence of any other response, I will.
Although I haven’t flown the Bebe, I have around 100 hours in similarly VW-powered Luton Minor and FRED ultralights, as well as a bit of time in the two-seat Jodel D117. I currently fly a 1939 Tipsy Trainer, which is basically like a ‘big Bebe’ – albeit with about the same horsepower!
The general reputation of the D9 is that it is a sweet-handling, but lightweight aeroplane in the same vein as the Turbulent or the parasol-winged Minor. Properly rigged it should fly hands-off in level flight, although the all-moving rudder will propably demand foot control inputs at all times!
As most Bebe will be homebuilt, there is likely to be a wide range of weights and likely performance between one aeroplane and another. A friend in the UK who built and flew a Bebe with a 1600cc VW engine reckoned around a 250 yard take-off run and about 400 feet per minute climb.
He used to climb out at around 45-50mph, cruise at 70-75 and stall at just over 30. He reckoned that landing, due to the long-chord wing is pretty easy, the aeroplane almost flares itself. The only gotcha is that if you land fast, it floats and floats and floats…….
Crosswind limit is around 15 knots if you are brave, but a light wingloading makes the aeroplane bouncy to fly in anything more than a light breeze anyway.
The one thing which does cause these aeroplanes to bite big time, is their relative lack of inertia, which means that with power off, they slow very rapidly to stalling speed. You do not have a surplus of power to drag the aeroplane off the back side of the drag curve, so you need to keep a close eye on airspeed management.
While I don’t believe that the Bebe is any better or worse than say, a Turbulent at the stall, there have been a couple of serious accidents in the UK, attributed to low speed, low level stall/spin when airspeed has been allowed to decay on approach.
Like the majority of VW-powered single seaters that were designed in the 1940s, pilots were a bit smaller then. A typical empty weight of a D9 will be about 200kg. MTOW is 320kg, which leaves just 120kg for fuel and pilot.
Hope this is of help. If you still are looking for an alternative to the Bebe, check out http://www.lutonminor.com 😉
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