Skip to main content

What is a Sonex?






I am building a homebuilt airplane called a Sonex. I have been working extremely hard to finance this project since August 2016. In April 2017, I purchased a partially completed Sonex. In February of 2018 I bought a Aerovee 80hp engine. I will still need to buy avionics and am such, working a million odd jobs to earn enough money.

What is a Sonex?


Well first we have to ask, are you talking about Sonex the company, or the Sonex Airplane?

Sonex is an aviation company, based out of wisconsin, that produces airplane kits for builders to make at home. A kit from Sonex includes the plans for making every single part in the plane and how they fit together, most of the hardware you will need (nuts screws bolts) , and a great deal of the material needed. With a kit, you can build realistically build a Sonex airplane in under 2 years in your garage. You are then left needing to buy certain customization items, instrument's, upholstery, and your choice of an engine.


The Sonex-A is a 2 seat, pilot and 1 passenger, small airplane. It is capable of performing aerobatics and has very responsive controls, akin to a fighter plane, or a sports car. Depending on what engine you instal its cruise speed is between 120 mph and 140mph, and it burns 5-8 gallons of fuel and hour in cruise flight.





For my Sonex (kit#1612) after a long period of sketching different ideas I have tenatively decided to vynll wrap my pane when it's done, this is my proposed color scheme.

Popular posts from this blog

Build Update April 5 2018: Dissasembling the Aerovee

The engine I bought was already built, and had not been run. My dad and I planned to take it all apart to give me a better understanding of the engine, as well as to identify any problems before they got bad. The Arovee engine was heavy and awkward to move. at the time it was sitting on the workbench with everything installed. Going into this I had only enough sense to tell you which cylinder is the #1, 2, 3, and 4, and I knew some of the terminology, such as crackshaft. I frequently asked my dad "what do you call that part?"  we began unbolting stuff in roughly reverse order from the manual (if you're familiar with sonex plans, you're used to backwards) In under an hour we had stripped many of the external parts off and the engine had lost at least 20 pounds! A box was designated as the hardware box, so it'll be like legos trying to find the right bolts and nuts again when I reassemble it. the important part is that they're all together and no...

Build Update August 7th 2018: Brakes, and Glareshield

Today I got a ton of work done on my hydraulic brakes system. I assembled the mount for my master cylinder and through some testing and pretending to sit in the cockpit to get a feel for where I want my brake lever, I located the exact position. I drilled and clecoed the whole assembly. with it in place, the real work behind hydraulic brakes set in. I cut my 12' length of tubing into two pieces, one for each brake. In order for the brake lines to get from the master cylinder inside the plane, to the brakes on the wheels, I had to drill a couple holes in the firewall at the front of the plane. One of the worst things that can go wrong with these brakes is having a line break. If that happened I would loose all pressure and have no brakes. If the brake line touches something, it will likely vibrate against it in flight, if it does that, eventually it will break. To prevent my lines from breaking and loosing their fluid, I use a larger size tubing, that just bar...

Plane Painted

When I flew my plane to OSH23, I saw an artist painting a small depiction of an airplane. She was painting a very small photorealistic scene from a phone image. I could not believe how detailed she was able to make it! She let me watch over he shoulder as she worked. I was so impressed that I commisisoned a similar painting of my sonex. Id like to share that painting with you all. Her name is Rhonda DeGarmo. She has a lot of other work. If you're interested in getting in touch with her please reach out to me and I will pass along her information.