SonexBuilders.net

Hi People,

after my second visit to Oshkosh this year (2008 was my first visit to Airventure), I am really interested in building a Onex. Have been to the Onex booth several times and tried it on for size (6' and 245 lbs is absolutely no problem !). Having flown several homebuilds, but never actually taken part in building one a friend of mine and I are looking for our first project and the Onex seems to fit the profle 100% ! The fact that the rules and regultions of homebuilding are different and stricter here in the Netherlands should be no problem for the Onex. I have heard that there is another person planning on building one. We did not order a kit yet, but hope to do so in 2012.

Cheers from the Netherlands,

Marco Lange

Welkom, Marco. Anngennam kennis te maaken!

Looking forward to hearing about your project...

Welcome Marco,

We are almost neighbours (relatively speaking!).

Whats involved in approving homebuilts in Holland? I wonder how it compares to the UK.

Welcome Marco. Like me you are up there a bit in the weight catagory. I am concerned about this issue on the Onex. The factory prototype is, I'm sure, built very light. It has minimum instruments, no autopilot or servos, no nose gear, no lights, and probably has the nikasil (spelled that wrong I bet) cylinders on the Aerovee thus saving 9 lbs. there. A 15 gal fuel tank takes up 90 lbs of that load and now we are down to 260 lbs of load left. Weight is going to be something I will definitely be watching.

Thanks for all the replies people! I hope the Onex project will start in 2012 or 2013, both my friend and I are airline pilots for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and we still have 15+ years to go before retirering, so finding the time for building also has to be considered. The Onex kit seems to be one of the most prefabricated metal kits and working on it for one hour only is an option, unlike a glass/varbon based kits.
The prototype I sat in at Airventure was the standard gear version and was kind of bare ... no lights in the wing tips (asked the people at Sonex about that and they replied that it was upto the buider to make a system to get the wires to the wing tips and work with the folding mechanism). Weight wise: I wouldn't install any insulation or upholstery, only seat cushions to be comfortable for 3 hours max. It's a fun aircraft, so I wouldn't install an autopilot, just a EFIS glass panel with all instruments and hopefully the need to have steam gauges for Airspeed, Altitude and compass will be lifted here in Holland soon too. There's no need for a intercom, so a handheld radio will do just fine (with external antenna), will have to install a transponder and ELT though. Holland is just 200 miles from north to south and 100 miles from east to west, so flying to other countries is almost unavoidable (and more fun too), so that why I need the ELT. Also any flights higher than 1400' will need a mode S transponder, doing aerobatics below 1400' is not recommended for obvious reasons ...
Sonex has created the option to increase the span for the Onex with the glassfibre wingtips to lower the stallspeed and still comply with LSA regulations at higher weights, but if staying within LSA speed limits is no issue, you could use the maximum span to have in increased margin with the max TO weight. I wouldn't go over the max weight for aerobatics though. Keep in mind that the max weights are there for a reason and I am not saying to increase them !

Kind regards,

Marco

Oh, just thought of something ... we could lose some weight, good for the max take off weight, accessories and our health !
Just a thought ...

Marco