Video: The Affordable Sport Fighter - The Sonex 'Onex' Homebuilt

 I've been a fan of the Sonex Onex since it was just a concept... and as this video shows, the little single seat Onex has a long list of enticing qualities. With the first two of customer built Onex's now listed on the Sonex Aircraft completions page, we can expect a steady stream of additional completions to begin taking to the sky.

 The affordable base kit price of $12,995 (without engine) means a completed aircraft can be in the air for just a little over $25,000 when you include a brand new 80hp AeroVee engine. Check out the Sonex Aircraft kit pricing page for more info - scroll down the page for the Onex kit pricing info and options.

 The combination of affordable cost, fast-to-build 'matched hole' prefabricated parts, folding wings for storage in small places, and truly sport-fighter performance in the air makes the Onex a truly remarkable aircraft! I think we should all have at least One[x] : )

(this video is an excerpt from the Sonex Story video)

Video screenshot showing the ultra fun Sonex Onex in the taildragger configuration

First Customer-Built Onex Flies... Let The Revolution Begin!

Bill Fisher and his 'first customer-built Onex': first flight was yesterday! (photo: Sonex)

 Thursday May 10th 2012 was a big day for the little single seat VW powered freedom machine known as the Onex... the first customer-built airplane made its first flight! I think this is the start of a quiet revolution for the homebuilt aircraft world. The Onex from Sonex Aircraft represents the most affordable, practical and desirable combination of design and function that I've ever seen in a homebuilt aircraft. I'm sure there are those out there who don't agree or aren't attracted to the Onex, but I believe that this little airplane offers more fun and realistic ability to reach completion for the average pilot than anything else that's ever been available. Learn more about the Onex kit at the Sonex website. 

 Congrats to Bill Fisher from Jackson Tennessee for making the first flight on the first customer-built Onex! From these pictures (from the Sonex website) it sure looks like he's done a great job putting the little cutie together... and if you know anything about me, you know I couldn't be happier that the first one done is a taildragger!

The affordable single seat sports car of the air - Onex from Sonex. (photo:Sonex)

 As you can see from the video below from the first flight (which really just shows a nice fly by), the VW engine has finally found the perfect home in the sky. The performance with the AeroVee engine is excellent... and the affordability and low operating costs only make it all the more attractive.

 Plus, the roomy cockpit, the folding wings, and the simplified kit, which includes more pre-formed parts and matched-hole assembly, means that there's very little compromise in the Onex package. I stand by my assessment that the Onex is the closest thing to the homebuilt grand slam that we've ever seen. I think you can expect to see these little machines popping up all over the place! If I wasn't still struggling just to survive financially, you can be sure there'd be one of these in progress out in my garage : )

The roomy cockpit of Bill Fisher's 'first customer-built' Onex kit  (photo: Sonex)

Oshkosh Pix #1: Sunday 7.24.11 - Before It Starts (14 Pix)

  Even tho Sunday is still a day before Oshkosh officially begins, there's still a ton of things to see and do. One that's always interesting to check out is the Sonex open house over on the east side of the airport at Sonex headquarters. I ran over there at 10am when things got started to see what I could find out about the Onex. As these first two pix show, the Onex is all prettied up for OSH11 with (surprise) yellow paint. I found out that the airplane is still short of 40 hors total time but that flight testing has progressed nicely.

 Initial kits components for the Onex are just beginning to ship to customers, tho the Sonex team is still finishing up the complete package. The good news however is that Onex airplanes will soon be under construction, and there's every reason to think that the follow-on components will be fully prepped soon to keep these builders moving forward. As expected, the prototype Onex was drawing a lot of attention at the open house, and I'm sure it'll be heavily gawked during the week!

 Inside one of the hangars was a second Onex aircraft still under construction, and as you can see, it's a trike version. The airplane looked pretty decent, but in my mind, there's never been a tricycle version of any airplane that looks anywhere near as nice as the taildragger version. However, the already more pleasing lines of the Onex over the Sonex translate to a good looking little airplane, even without paint.

Click to read more ...

Batter Up: Onex (By Sonex) Looking More Like A Grand Slam!

My drawing of a VW powered Onex in racing paint (+ trick aftermarket wheel pants)

Previous Posts:  Onex At Oshkosh 2010    Can The Onex Save GA?    Onex First Flight

 I first brought up the idea of a Grand Slam homebuilt airplane in the middle of last year. It's the idea of a homebuilt that could very effectively capture four important elements: Affordable - Great Performance (but not too hard to fly) - Easy To Build - Electrifying Looks. The good ole BD-5 was supposed to be that airplane 40 years ago, but a variety of obstacles got in the way. And in my mind, the definitive Grand Slam homebuilt has still never materialized. But now, the Onex from Sonex is beginning to show signs that it's aiming for the fence with the bases loaded!

 A few important points here first. There are some really good 2-place homebuilt airplanes that offer great value, performance and looks. You can go way back to the days of the Long-EZ or early Glasair or Lancair designs, or maybe the RV-4 or 6... but bigger airplanes with bigger engines, or maybe relatively high kit cost make all those airplanes either pretty expensive to complete or complicated to build, or maybe both. In my mind, the real Grand Slam is almost surely a single seat airplane cuz that's how you're really gonna keep the costs down. And while there have been many great airplanes that are affordable and maybe easy to build, the ones that combine all four of the elements above are either hard to find or simply don't exist. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you may not agree with my opinion on the looks side of things, but I honestly believe that the Onex from Sonex comes closer than any homebuilt to being that special combination that can be considered a Grand Slam. 

The Onex on its first flight on January 27, 2011

 And even tho the Onex is still just a prototype, the more I'm seeing about the details of this little 'sport fighter', the more I'm impressed. The video below from a few weeks back (shot from the cockpit) really helps to point to the Onex's game winning plans.

 With extremely simple structural design that borrows from the very successful Sonex line, and the overall small size of the airplane, you get affordable knocked out pretty quickly. It's looking like a completed airplane should be possible at about 20K without any hardcore scrounging. The AeroVee (VW derived engine) making 80hp for just under $7,000 goes a long way toward making the airplane both affordable and a great performer. Even tho straight and level cruise is around 135 mph, the Vne on the Onex is 216 mph! And when you take those pleasing lines and great proportions and add some flashy paint like my drawing above, and you've got one hot looking little flying machine.

 So watch the video from inside the cockpit and imagine yourself out having some cheap fun on a sweet sunny day. And keep watch for info from Sonex on exact kit pricing and availability... cuz when this Grand Slam clears the fence, avgeeks all over the world will be the winners!

Onex Prototype Flies - Reveals V-Dub Paradise!

Previous Onex post:
Can the Onex (1X) From Sonex Save General Aviation In America? 

First flight of the Sonex Aircraft 'Onex' took place on January 27, 2011 (photos: Sonex)

(6 pix and 1 video)

 Looking and feeling like a sport fighter, the Onex single seat VW powered homebuilt prototype made its first flight out of Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on January 27, 2011. The enthusiastic thumbs up from Sonex CEO, Onex designer, and first-flight test pilot Jeremy Monnett revealed that the initial impressions are already living up to the expectations of many, including me. The little all-aluminum LSA has the added benefit of wings that can be folded very easily to allow for a quick and simple way to store the aircraft in a really small space. In my opinion, the 80hp AeroVee Volkswagen powered Onex ushers in a new world of VW powered paradise for homebuilders. Never before has such a simple, clean and great performing airframe been mated to the simple and efficient VW based engine. I'm predicting a real V-dub paradise with this airplane! Watch the first flight video below and listen to how strong that AeroVee sounds!

  I also made a bold claim that the Onex just might be able to save General Aviation as we seem to be stumbling into an uncertain future for flying in America. Whether this affordable, easy-to-build, VW powered sportster that has great lines can really have a direct impact on the larger world of GA is uncertain, but I can say with a great deal of confidence that this airplane holds greater promise to draw more people into sport flying than anything we've seen a quite a while.

Click to read more ...

Can The Onex (1X) From Sonex Save General Aviation In America?

(click pic to enlarge)  
My rendering of a patriotic version of the yet-to-fly single seat Onex from Sonex

(6 pix + 1 video)

 I understand it might be a bit of a stretch for many people to consider that a small single seat VW powered homebuilt airplane might play any part at all in saving General Aviation in America, but at the moment, I can't think of anything more likely. I feel this way for several reasons, starting with the fact that this little sport-pilot compliant airplane, which hasn't even had its first flight yet, is the closest thing I've seen to what I call a 'Grand Slam' homebuilt. If you haven't seen my post from a while back on the Grand Slam homebuilt, here are the 4 parts that make it up:

 1) affordable

 2) great performance but not excessively demanding to fly

 3) relatively and realistically easy to build

 4) electrifying looks

 The one specific point I brought up previously when I mentioned the Onex as a contender for the four-run-homer was whether its looks could be classified as 'electrifying'.  Well, now that I've seen it in person, both at the Open House at their facility at Oshkosh on the day before OSH10 started, and at their booth during Oshkosh, I can say that the Onex definitely looks potentially low-voltage electrfying. True, I wouldn't call it full on electrifying like the 1970's BD-5, but the Onex appears to be so far down the road to fulfilling the other three elements of the grand slam that I gotta think this little cutie is gonna be the closest we've ever been to hitting it out of the park with the bases loaded.

Onex reveal at the Sonex open house on Sunday July 25, 2010

 The basic design philosophy of the Onex is to take all the great simplification ideas that John Monnett and crew have engineered into the Sonex family of airplanes, and apply them to a single seater intended to be as affordable as possible. The best news from my perspective is that the guys didn't make it as absolutely tiny as they could, and they aren't trying to get it to fly on the smallest engine available. You could insert some thoughts on the Moni here if you want to. However, by making the Onex a size that is both roomy and comfortable, and by putting an engine on the nose that they've proven can fly two people around quite nicely in a Sonex or Waiex, they are on the brink of offering an airplane that fits real people and will have some very sharp performance. It was obvious when looking in the cockpit that this little airplane has a lot of room inside.

 The more you study the lines on the airplane, the more you see how everything falls into just the right spot. If you want both simple-to-build and visually pleasing (a real rare combo in homebuilt airplanes), then I think you'll be pleased with the way this airplane looks. And, for those who've struggled a bit with the lines of the Sonex and Waiex airplanes, I think you'll find that the Onex is able to sidestep any weirdness and go straight to the head of the class. First, by being a much narrower fuselage, you don't get that sharp break in the slab sides as they work their way past the cockpit. And second, the cowling has a softer shape in the area where the Sonex cowl can be a little, shall we say, 'different'... plus having the heads of the cylinder banks push out thru the cowling sides not only narrows the cowling a bit, but it's one of the coolest nods to the classic cowl of the J-3 Cub ever!

 After you get past the simple fact that this is a great looking airplane that obviously wouldn't be complex to build, you can move on to some other really cool aspects of the Onex. The folding wings specifically. The idea was to create a folded size that would allow for easy trailering and easy storage in a normal sized garage. With the wings folded, it's just a tad over 8' wide, and it's just under 7' tall. all while still giving the airplane 78 sq ft of wing area total, which is enuf to keep the slow end of the speed range from being too hot. Even cooler than all that is the fact that it literally takes about 5 seconds to fold a wing panel. They've very cleverly designed the mechanism to not require any kind of disconnecting of the control linkages to be able to accomplish the fold. You unlock the wing. You fold the wing up!

Click to read more ...

Back To The Future: The Quest For The Grand Slam Homebuilt

The EOS/001 experimental aircraft design at Oshkosh 1973 with the C-5A

 There's a pretty good chance you have no idea what this little experimental airplane is that's sitting on runway 18/36 at Oshkosh '73 under the wing of the huge Lockheed C-5A Galaxy.  This was just 2 years after the BD-5 had electrified Oshkosh, and this little single-seat airplane had come along to offer up some competition in the 2-stroke powered super-cool looking and cheap-to-build arena.  

 More on the airplane in a moment, but first it's interesting that this picture was taken right out on the runway.  If I remember correctly, there was no place to put the C-5A as this was long before AeroShell Square existed, so they left it on the runway, which was pretty cool because we were allowed out there in the evening to look things over.  For some reason, the little all white EOS/001 prototype had been positioned out there as well.  I was only 12 at the time, but I was very knowledgeable about what was going on in the homebuilt world, and we had a BD-5 kit sitting in the living room at home, so I was paying real close attention to what this EOS airplane was all about.

 I should probably clarify that the outer wing panels aren't installed on the airplane in this pic.  I'm not sure why they weren't on it, but I'm pretty sure they had been on it during the week sometime, but maybe they weren't.  I checked the Oshkosh365 online back issue archive of Sport Aviation earlier today (a fab perk of being an EAA member) and found a few articles on the EOS/001 from late 1972 and 1973.  From what I found, the airplane still hadn't flown when it was at Oshkosh in 73.  In fact, I can't find any record that the airplane ever did fly.  It's a bit of a mystery, and I'm hoping someone has some info on whatever happened to this great looking little airplane.  If you do, please let me know!

The sleek and simple EOS/001 homebuilt from the early 70's

 Here's the real point of all this: we need a 'grand slam' single-seat homebuilt airplane to emerge into the marketplace.  An airplane that can satisfy 4 major desires:

 1) affordable

 2) great performance but not excessively demanding to fly

 3) relatively and realistically easy to build

 4) electrifying looks

 These were the 4 big promises of the BD-5, tho I believe it was coloring outside the lines on some of the claims.  Then it left thousands of builders stranded without complete kits as the 70's progressed.  The EOS/001 actually looked like it was possibly better suited to fulfill those desires, but it disappeared pretty much without a trace.  The RV-3 had hit the scene around this time, and while it's a fantastic airplane, it's really more work and expense than what I think the mass market is looking for.  Then the Ultralight movement came along in the late 70's with the idea of inexpensive flying, but none of those airplane could ever offer the same kind of experience as a BD-5 or EOS.  There have been some other designs along the way over the years, but the definitive single-seat, affordable and easy to build 'electrifying' airplane still doesn't seem to exist.  Maybe I'm missing a great design... if so, please let me know.

 I am excited however at what Sonex has been working on to address much of what I'm talking about.  They are currently building the prototype Onex aircraft, a single-seat derivative of the popular Sonex airplanes.  I really like what the Sonex airplanes have to offer, but I know a lot of people wouldn't say they look 'electrifying'.  Regardless, the Onex definitely looks very interesting.  Hopefully we'll see what it really has to offer at Oshkosh 2010.  And you can be sure I'll be posting lots more about it soon.

 Ultimately I'm trying to stir up thought and discussion.  I even have my own design for an electrifying airplane that has recently fallen out of my head and onto paper, or at least onto the computer screen.  I've seen a lot of cool airplanes over the years, and I gotta say that what I've come up with is right at the top of the pile.  It's so good in fact that I'm not gonna share any details right now.  I'm trying to find other people who have real vision for filling this need in the experimental aircraft world, and then we'll see what comes next.

 Mostly I'm looking for people to talk back... please, say something : )