Can the Onex save General Aviation?

[Mike53]

If you can put it in your garage it must be true.http://airpigz.com/blog/2010/8/10/can-t ... erica.html

[chris]

It is certainly unique and has many desirable features. ....the best of which in my opinion is the folding wings. It is relatively cheap to buy and operate and no need for hangar rent. Be sure to add the fun factor of aerobatics to the equation. I am sure it will be very successful.

That being said, I personally think it will be a bigger hit as a second toy aircraft instead of a primary means of flying. The thing I like most about flying is taking somebody else up to share the experience with....or introducing them to flying. While I do enjoy flying alone I wouldn't want a single place aircraft as my only plane. I would love a 2 place with wings that come off or fold that fast and easy.

So that raises a question to those with onex kits on order. Will the Onex be your only airplane?

[Mike53]

For me probably yes,aircraft ownership is an expensive hobby when you consider type certified airplanes.The sometimes high cost of annuals alone have chased more than a few pilots back to rentals at there local FBO.
Putting a certified airplane in to Owner maintenance cat. is not all it's cracked up to be either. Try and sell it for what you paid for it.
add hanger fees which are approaching $3000 to $4000 at most airports.

Scratch built is another way to go but it can take years to finish but this is a possibility for me.I have plans for both the Pietenpol and the fly baby.

The Onex in the amateur built category .It is as you say relatively cheap to build and operate.You can trailer it home or share hanger space with someone else.Heck if you can get 4 other people to invest in their own Onex you can all share the cost of one t-hanger and pay only your share or $600 to $800/yr/ since you can fit 5 in one hanger.
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/images/pro ... hangar.jpg

As to carrying passengers rent a 172 ,after all ,check your log book and see how many times a year you actually do fly passengers.If you are like me it would be about 10% of the time.

I guess the bottom line is money and for me one airplane is the limit.

I should note that I am speaking about Canadian ownership.

[chris]

All good points Mike. To be clear I didn't mean certified aircraft as my alternative. I was thinking along the lines of sonex vs onex. The Onex is so much more hangar cost friendly with its wings.

So that is one for the Onex as their only aircraft column.

[GOIX]

I'm building the Onex because I want to build . I've been restoring the 93 RV-4 I imported and it can be a bit frustrating fixing another person's mistakes . I have a long history of model building, and combined with what I've learned in 2 yrs of RV ownership , I think I can build a nice little plane . The Onex was chosen because it's relatively inexpensive and I think there's a good chance of completing the project in a reasonable time frame .

I do consider this my second "toy" plane . When it's complete I will rethink the 2 seater . Maybe buy a more social aircraft like an RV-7 .

Marc

[Dan]

Right now I share a Tripacer with a friend who is building a RV-9A. I believe we will keep the Tripacer as our second airplane. If I want to take somebody up I can still do that. The Tripacer is paid for and it is pretty cheap to fly and maintain. I would think that 99% of my flying would be by myself anyway.

[Dan]

http://www.airplanecolor.com/download.htm

You can try this link. I haven't tried the program but it looks promising. They do have a program for the Sonex.

[Andy Walker]

The Onex is a neat, inexpensive, clever design.

But the problems with General Aviation are multiple and complex. Some of them are:

1) Aging pilot population. As the overall population ages, so does the pilot population. And since we seem to have trouble attracting young people to fly, the pilot population is aging faster than the general population. Older people die or get infirm enough to stop flying. Thus we're losing pilots faster than we're replacing them. Also flying takes a real time and attention commitment, which is hard for the PS3 generation to make.

2) Aircraft cost. The fun part of aviation is flying where you want when you want. You can't do that renting, so pilots want to own. New aircraft are horrendously expensive, and they get pretty old before they get affordable, which leads to maintenance issues and more cost. The cost of the airplane is really just "the price of admission," and ongoing expenses are high. You can build, but then you've opened a worm can of all new time and money issues. Plus E-AB airplanes are, at least on paper, more accident prone than certified planes. And we won't even talk about fuel cost...

3) Regulatory hassles. Between medicals, currency requirements, logbooks, and all the paperwork required to keep an airplane legal, a lot of the fun and excitement of actually flying gets drained away. Not to mention threading your way through the national airspace system with pop-up TFRs and a million rules. It kind of turns our awesome hobby into an exercise in paperwork and trying to thread the legal needle so that we can have fun while not losing our certificates.

The Onex ain't gonna fix these problems. What I think *can* fix them is for the FAA to get out of the way, at least a little bit, to lower entry barriers for people to fly. The Sport Pilot rules and ASTM certification for LSAs are excellent examples. Down the road, when the FAA realizes what we already know, that people aren't dropping out of the sky because the don't have a medical (medical incapacitation accounts for about 0.1% of fatal accidents) or because lack of a federal microscope caused aircraft makers to make dangerous airplanes, things will relax even more. I'd personally like to see the 3rd class medical removed completely, and an expanded ASTM ruleset available as an alternate route of aircraft certification for planes up to 5000lb gross weight.

I can dream, can't I? ;)

[Mike53]

All excellent point Andy.I get angry when I hear local pilots complaining about the cost of learning to fly today,claiming it used to be a lot cheaper 10,20,30 years ago.I like to point out to them that they are hurting aviation by spreading untruths,and before they object I go on to say when I learned to fly in 1970 I paid $17/hr solo for a cherokee 140 and $22/hr dual.I also made $1.00/hr as a grocery packer at the local N&D grocery store.I usually managed to get 15 to 20 hr's /week in .The Windsor airport was about 12 miles from where we lived and I would dutifully hitchhike there every weekend the weather was good.After about a year and a half I got my private.
I will then go on to say that the current minimum wage in Ontario,is a little over $10/hr ,so a young lad with ambition and a dream could earn about $150 to $200/week .Since no one in my area rents 140's anymore I use the 172 which rents for $140 solo and $192 dual at my local airport ,a little more in the City.If you then consider a 150 or 152 the price is $105/hr solo ,$157 dual it is actually cheaper than when I learned in 140's.At this point they all agree that they never really gave it any thought but yeah I guess your right.My only hope is they will now start saying the glass is half full.
Having said that I think nothing is as important as programs like Young Eagles.Take a kid flying every chance you get.

On the same topic I copied this from an article which highlites your 3rd point

[Andy Walker]

All excellent point Andy.I get angry when I hear local pilots complaining about the cost of learning to fly today,claiming it used to be a lot cheaper 10,20,30 years ago.I like to point out to them that they are hurting aviation by spreading untruths,and before they object I go on to say when I learned to fly in 1970 I paid $17/hr solo for a cherokee 140 and $22/hr dual.I also made $1.00/hr as a grocery packer at the local N&D grocery store.I usually managed to get 15 to 20 hr's /week in .The Windsor airport was about 12 miles from where we lived and I would dutifully hitchhike there every weekend the weather was good.After about a year and a half I got my private.
I will then go on to say that the current minimum wage in Ontario,is a little over $10/hr ,so a young lad with ambition and a dream could earn about $150 to $200/week .Since no one in my area rents 140's anymore I use the 172 which rents for $140 solo and $192 dual at my local airport ,a little more in the City.If you then consider a 150 or 152 the price is $105/hr solo ,$157 dual it is actually cheaper than when I learned in 140's.At this point they all agree that they never really gave it any thought but yeah I guess your right.My only hope is they will now start saying the glass is half full.
Having said that I think nothing is as important as programs like Young Eagles.Take a kid flying every chance you get.

On the same topic I copied this from an article which highlites your 3rd point