SonexBuilders.net

Hey, guys :-)

What numbers are you guys getting for your best rate of climb SOLO. Sonex says 1200-1400 fpm, but not sure if that's at gross or solo.

Thanks,
Dan

I get about 1000 fpm solo taking off from 6900ft with a DA of 8500ft. Gross I'm seeing around 500fpm. The lowest altitude I've flown is Goodland KS at 3,600ft and saw well over 1500 fpm in climb out solo. The highest airport I've flown out of, Leadville, CO at 9,934ft I saw around 200fpm solo. At 14,000 ft, I wasn't getting anymore climb out of the plane.

I have a Prince P-Tip prop.

Without being specific about standard conditions, I can say I have left the ground at 367', and 8 minutes later been at 8500' with Mike Singleton (~180 lbs) and I (~215 lbs), and about half a tank of fuel. And I did not get all of the junk out of the plane before I did it either. I would speculate this to be around 1150 lbs.

I routinely see about 1400'/minute on hot days (~100 F) in the summer with just me in the plane at the same starting elevation, and something around 1800'/min on a cool dense air morning. I have been higher than 13,500' and still climbing.

I would hazard a guess that the Sonex quote is at gross and sea level, or near it. I have found their performance numbers very believable, and in some cases, understated.

Blue Skies!

Rob.
N157SX, AKA "Sexy Hexy"
~590 hours

I'm near sea level and am not getting that. I know I'm leaving some power on the table and will sort it out. I have an MGL Enigma and used their BBV program to generate graphs. Looking down at the monitor during the climbs, I'd see 1200 fpm, but when just drew the straight line slope it came out to 1050. I've just installed the Bing and it doesn't want to run good more than 3/4 throttle. It's only burning 6 gph when climbing, too. No wheel pants, but do have the gear fairings. Prince P-tip prop.

I looked a little closer at the Sonex website. Says aerobatic, with a gross of 950, would get 2000+ fpm, which sounds more like your numbers.

Dan

With a 700lb nosedragger, I'm seeing 1800-2000 fpm solo. Heck...I see about 1500 fpm with a passenger! But, my EGT's go nuts if I sustain that rat for more than a few minutes. Probably too much back pressure with the nose so high. -Mike #1284