Onex…to be or not to be?
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:19 amHello to all you Onex builders and owners out there.
I am at the ‘dreaming’ stage of building my first aeroplane and have narrowed my choice down to 2 or 3 designs. I have experience in wood and am used to working on old wooden sailplanes, which are probably the pinnacle in really light construction in wood (I am rebuilding a pre-war design now).
My current flying experience is circa 8000 hours (I haven’t kept a logbook for about 5 years now), and fly for a living.
As part of my retirement plan when I get chucked out the door in a few years time, I want to operate my own economical little aeroplane, with a focus on going places as apposed to ‘just getting airborne.’
Hangarage is always going to be an issue here in the U.K., which is both scarce and expensive, so that becomes a big factor in availability and costs.
So my perfect aircraft would be of wood, compact, have a cruise around 100 knots, and have an affordable engine option like the Jabiru 2200 or VW.
A single-seater doesn’t bother me (in fact I like the idea) and doing my homework I have been looking at the pros and cons of various plans-build options. Plans build gives me the opportunity to be more flexible on bespoke design, but takes 2-3 times longer to build than many kits.
So looking at the various options out there, the Onex one day really grabbed my eye (ironically after I had suggested it to someone else in my current predicament!), and takes a lot of beating on paper.
Pros:
-Wings fold giving minimum hangarage space which gives more opportunity for finding current hangarage without necessarily requiring a entire new slot to either become available or created (I can tow it home to store as well).
-The Onex is pretty quick on not much power.
-It has pretty good range and long legs
-Should be relatively quick to build from a kit
-Looks quite pretty
-Looks like they have a pretty roomy cockpit
-Semi-aerobatic
-Offers best budget engine package out there with the VW (although the Jabiru is high on my list). Both engines represent good value for money, economical to run, and I have past experience on maintaining them
-kit overall looks to be excellent value for money making the Onex more palatable in terms of limiting resale of a single seater
-Type is already on our LAA list, so should be straightforward to get through the U.K. system.
Cons:
-It’s not a Jodel…
-It’s metal construction which I have no experience on
-small tin aeroplanes sound like a tin can getting kicked down the road when they are on the ground
-single seaters have less resale appeal to many buyers
So now that I have approached it in a fairly logical manner, here’s the question I wanted to pose here…
What’s it like to fly and live with? What’s the things to look out for and what could be better?
I have flown small compact homebuilt’s in the past, many sharing similar issues, especially draggy designs like the VP, where wing loading can be relatively high and are fairly unforgiving near the stall.
As the old saying goes, all answers on the back of a postcard, I look forward to reading your responses…
Cheers,
HH
I am at the ‘dreaming’ stage of building my first aeroplane and have narrowed my choice down to 2 or 3 designs. I have experience in wood and am used to working on old wooden sailplanes, which are probably the pinnacle in really light construction in wood (I am rebuilding a pre-war design now).
My current flying experience is circa 8000 hours (I haven’t kept a logbook for about 5 years now), and fly for a living.
As part of my retirement plan when I get chucked out the door in a few years time, I want to operate my own economical little aeroplane, with a focus on going places as apposed to ‘just getting airborne.’
Hangarage is always going to be an issue here in the U.K., which is both scarce and expensive, so that becomes a big factor in availability and costs.
So my perfect aircraft would be of wood, compact, have a cruise around 100 knots, and have an affordable engine option like the Jabiru 2200 or VW.
A single-seater doesn’t bother me (in fact I like the idea) and doing my homework I have been looking at the pros and cons of various plans-build options. Plans build gives me the opportunity to be more flexible on bespoke design, but takes 2-3 times longer to build than many kits.
So looking at the various options out there, the Onex one day really grabbed my eye (ironically after I had suggested it to someone else in my current predicament!), and takes a lot of beating on paper.
Pros:
-Wings fold giving minimum hangarage space which gives more opportunity for finding current hangarage without necessarily requiring a entire new slot to either become available or created (I can tow it home to store as well).
-The Onex is pretty quick on not much power.
-It has pretty good range and long legs
-Should be relatively quick to build from a kit
-Looks quite pretty
-Looks like they have a pretty roomy cockpit
-Semi-aerobatic
-Offers best budget engine package out there with the VW (although the Jabiru is high on my list). Both engines represent good value for money, economical to run, and I have past experience on maintaining them
-kit overall looks to be excellent value for money making the Onex more palatable in terms of limiting resale of a single seater
-Type is already on our LAA list, so should be straightforward to get through the U.K. system.
Cons:
-It’s not a Jodel…
-It’s metal construction which I have no experience on
-small tin aeroplanes sound like a tin can getting kicked down the road when they are on the ground
-single seaters have less resale appeal to many buyers
So now that I have approached it in a fairly logical manner, here’s the question I wanted to pose here…
What’s it like to fly and live with? What’s the things to look out for and what could be better?
I have flown small compact homebuilt’s in the past, many sharing similar issues, especially draggy designs like the VP, where wing loading can be relatively high and are fairly unforgiving near the stall.
As the old saying goes, all answers on the back of a postcard, I look forward to reading your responses…
Cheers,
HH