Cocolos wrote:Hi!
I am considering building a Waixe, but I would first like to speak with some owners/builders. I am in Sacramento and every other weekend or so I make out to SF. I would be happy to meet anyone nearby and chat about the building processes and flying characteristics of Waixe.
Some questions I have right now are:
- What are the performance numbers for Waixe with Aerovee Turbo? (I didn't see them on the Sonex website)
- How reliable are the Aerovee Turbos? is it look a relatively new conversion, i.e., not many sonex flying with them?
- Would a Waixe serve missions for 2 adults (130-180lbs) + small bags for long cross countries? It seems with a 5.5 gal/h fuel burn you would only be able to fly for 3ish hours?
- On similar topic as above I've seen that people have added cylinder tanks to wings, how successful has that been?
- Are there any Sonex equipped for light IFR? It seems with modern systems it would be possible, but not sure if the weight would be a problem?
Thanks!
Welcome to the forums! I'll offer my two cents to your questions, but please take my opinions for what they're worth. I have a Waiex with a non-turbo AeroVee, but flew the airplane for just over 100 hours with the turbo installed.
-The Waiex with the turbo AeroVee, at maximum takeoff weight of 1150 lbs, will probably have initial climb rates around 600-1000 feet per minute when taking off from sea level airports and you'll see cruise speeds ranging from 135-140 mph at low altitudes to 150-165 mph at higher altitudes. If you need to go faster you can push the engine up to 170-175 mph if you are okay burning a lot of fuel and running your engine at maximum continuous power (35" manifold pressure).
- The turbo AeroVee reliability is a matter of personal opinion; there have been some growing pains over the years but the current setup appears to be working well.
- The factory demonstrator Waiex B has an empty weight of 700 lbs, so if you build yours with similar equipment you'll have a useful load of around 450 lbs. If you top off the fuel tank with 20 gallons, that will leave you with around 330 lbs for people and bags. When I ran my turbo AeroVee I was averaging around 6.5 gallons per hour fuel burn so you would have a little over 3 hours endurance, although some turbo owners have reported lower fuel burns than what I saw.
- Installing aux fuel of any type would be up to the builder. Personally I was fine only having 2 hour flight times; I was ready to get out and stretch by then anyway!
- Do yourself a favor and don't even think about IFR in a Sonex. That subject gets brought up and people get frustrated with the discussion, but I think you'll find most people agree the handling and stability qualities make the Sonex a very poor platform for any IFR operations. You can search these forums for more information on the subject if you'd like.
Welcome! Best of luck!
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:32 pm