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That article ran in Kitplanes magazine when I still worked at Sonex, which means almost 4 years ago. The flight Paul describes in the article took place on November 9th, 2016. I still have a few copies of the magazine the article appeared in. I'm on the cover! :)

It was fun to revisit the article again, and to remember the flight. It was fun!

For those who may care, Paul Dye says in his article that the "original" Sonex was powered by the Aerovee engine. If by "original" he meant "prototype", then his statement isn't entirely accurate. The prototype Sonex was powered by a Jabiru 3300 engine as the Aerovee engine wasn't yet ready to be marketed. So if an early builder wanted to go the VW conversion route, the engine was necessarily selected from other suppliers such as Great Plains, Hummel, etc. If one purchased an engine directly from Sonex LTD in the early days, it was either a Jabiru 3300 or a Jabiru 2200.

As I said, for those who may care,

Art,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Sonex taildragger #95,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jabiru 3300 #261

builderflyer wrote:The prototype Sonex was powered by a Jabiru 3300 engine as the Aerovee engine wasn't yet ready to be marketed.

Actually, the original Sonex (N12SX) was initially powered by a 2200 Jabiru. It was converted to the 3300 when it was put on floats! The floats are gone now, but the 3300 remains.

Here's the EAA Sport Aviation article on SX1....

https://www.sonexaircraft.com/wp-conten ... n-0898.pdf

Thanks for the correction, Joe. Shoulda dragged out my old copy of the referenced article before writing. My memory isn't as good as it used to be but at least I was right about the Sonex prototype having a Jabiru engine, even though it was a 2200 for the first flights.

Art