Skis on a Sonex?

[fastj22]

After three years of heavy labor, I finally convinced my bride of 30 years to build a house at a Colorado airpark. We are now building our retirement home in paradise and living the dream.
However, the latest blizzard in Colorado left the runway covered in 2 feet of heavy wet snow, too deep for the association to plow.
Got me to wonder, has anyone put skis on a Sonex? My next plane will be either a Kolb or Kitfox that I can clearly put skis on.
Last weekend I flew over my new homestead, staring down at a beautiful virgin snow drifted runway.

[Bryan Cotton]

You beat me to it. I was watching the cessna ski guys at the airport yesterday and wondered if you could do it with a Sonex.

[fastj22]

I have zero experience with ski planes. I assume you can fit some sort of ski that will handle both dry and snow conditions. My plane is now located at a properly maintained airport that plows the runway and taxiways, but got to think about the future!

[Bryan Cotton]

I have experience with both skis and planes, but never at the same time. Looks like fun and a bunch of guys in the Cessna 120/140 Association used to talk it up. At C77 they plow the paved runways and taxiways but leave the grass runways for the ski guys. I would probably get wheel penetration skis, so you can go on hardtop or snow.

[fastj22]

I have 45 years of ski, telemark and snowboarding. I'm a Colorado kid. In fact, I have enough old snowboards to make a nice set of Sonex Skis. Imagine a set of Burtons flying over?

[GordonTurner]

That actually sounds like it would be just right. There was a guy with a sonex on floats, this should be "easy"

[Sonerai13]

That actually sounds like it would be just right. There was a guy with a sonex on floats, this should be "easy"

First, that "guy" with the Sonex on floats was the factory. We do not know of any other float installations on a Sonex, although we've had a few inquiries.

Second, before any of you go off half-cocked on skis, you should get some instruction in ski plane flying. It's not as easy as it looks, and it's VERY hard on an airframe. I've seen quite a few airplanes substantially damaged during ski operations. Also, you'll note the most ski planes are high wing (or have very tall gear). A Sonex sits pretty low to the ground comparatively, so you don't need too much soft, light snow before the bottom of the airplane, and more importantly, the bottoms of the wings, are dragging on the snow. Pretty tough to take off when you can't get any air on the underside of the wings. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

[fastj22]

Thinking way out of the box, probably not even in the same crate, but a big retractable SkiGull type ski under the belly! Complete with roller blade wheels.
I guess I'll just keep the Sonex on the groomers and start looking for that all terrain aircraft for off piste excursions.

[GordonTurner]

From VAF, successful deployment of skis on low-wing aircraft...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/djipibi/12628602513/