peter

Horses for courses, Rotax, Jabiru, VW, you are not comparing apples with apples. My aerovee cost 6,000 dollars, I spent another 4,000 modifying it. I now have an engine which can pull my Onex at 130knots straight and level, runs perfectly going vertical up or down and inverted. How much would a Rotax cost that can do that? More than my whole plane is worth? I am prepared to accept the fiddling and accept the lack of reliability because it suits my budget. People fly behind VW’s because they are cheap. What else can you get for the price? I am tired of reading how Rotaxes are better than Jabs, they should be, they cost twice as much. Peter

if I am thinking of the correct incident at gawler, it was a Onex, not a Sonex, it had significantly modified controls to suit a disability, there was a real question of the pitot placement giving erroneous readings of airspeed, Sonex do not recommend extended ground testing of the aerovee, the test pilot was not from Qantas, has flown regularly since, is a far better pilot than I will ever be, and has done at least one other test flight that I am aware of since. I had a local aerobatic pilot test fly my plane, he had never flown a similar type before, flew it perfectly, greased a three point landing first time. My nerves were bad enough watching him, I am glad I didn’t do the first flight. It gave me great confidence for the subsequent testing.

Onex by Sonex, stopped counting at 1000hours, despite being very complete and match hole predrilled. Bought the kit when the exchange rate was over 110USD to 100 Aus so total cost including shipping door to door was 45,000Aud. Loved building love flying it. Sonex forums are great. Modified the engine (VW) to run inverted, beefed up the smoke system and I have a blast with it.

Probably only around 20 hours but my average flight is only about 20 minutes, which i find is ample to loop, roll, hammerhead, 1/2 cuban, spin or whatever takes my fancy. I am away half the year so fly at least twice a week when home if the weather is OK. 10 minutes twice a week with the smoke on eats into the budget!

An excellent topic. I tried a small boat compass suspended from the windscreen frame on the Onex - useless. Flying day VFR what do you need? Mobile phone - mine has a built in compass, hand held garmin etrex has built in compass (which has proved accurate from the arctic to the antarctic). Who actually flies off the compass which has huge errors (deviation), points to the magnetic pole and has locality/area errors ( variation). If to be used seriously would need to be swung for all headings at different RPM and a deviation card produced, just not worth the effort for day VFR. Peter PS good luck with the Sonex, the whole range are fun to fly!

Hi Ian, I am a reader rather than a poster. i get the technical information I need/want via the Sonex forum which is so type specific. These are the only forums I read. i enjoy the Australian content and it is the only way I keep in touch with “recreational” flying. To remain aerobatic I must stay registered GA but at 289kg and with an 80hp vw at the pointy end I feel much more affinity with the flying for fun group. I never use the resources, would be happy with a simple platform and have no objection to any advertising. Thankyou for keeping it going for so long. Peter

Onex, aerovee modified for inverted flight

HI Jase, I think I started around 2000 at Murray Bridge with James at RPA. Have had a couple of Jabs ( and loved them) which I flew all over the place including 5678 which I brought back from Noosa and last I saw was still online at Murray Bridge. Now based out of Goolwa which has to be close to the perfect place to fly - hangar with a sea view, 3 runways ( land in any wind) lots of flat paddocks ( if the engine has a hissy fit) whales in winter, murray mouth and coorong, and a very interesting array of planes (heaps of experimentals, few warbirds and gyros, not to mention the amazing folding wing Onex!!) Fabulous LAME who can work on composites, metal and wood/fabric and puts on some amazing aerobatic displays. Plus it is sufficiently quiet that I get annoyed if I have to wait for anyone before entering and rolling. Drop in if you are down this way, Peter

I had no idea that 182’s had jabiru engines. According to this forum jabiru engines are the only ones that fail. After all the comments on the recent jabiru engine which just stopped, on this thread all the comments are about the pilot, on the other thread it is all about the engine. The bias against jabiru seems to know no bounds. For me, dollar for dollar jabiru have to have the best value engine going.

My Onex performs as well or better than the Sonex published data, have been pleasantly surprised that the data “claimed“ matches the real world performance.

I would expect all airforce trainees to become comfortable with unusual attitudes including basic aerobatics, but I am guessing. If yes then I would have thought around +6-3 would be more appropriate. Any airforce pilots care to enlighten us, please.

correct me if I'm wrong please Nick but the prime is +4 -2, which would not make it ideal as an airforce trainer.

The yellow one is the original and still works perfectly but I wanted to go hi tech with a colour screen hence the new one. The new one also has built in magnetic compass, cheers Peter

Go for it! At least with the etrex around you can monitor the lack of accuracy of your magnetic compass! My etrex is 16 years old and has guided me safely through white outs in Antarctica and heavy fog in the Arctic, places where magnetic variation can be as much as 80degrees, as well as all my flying here in Oz so I'm pretty biased. Have you swung a compass before? Cheers Peter PS congrats on the build and keep us updated PPS don't believe the 25 hours, depends on screen settings and ambient temp, spare batteries are pretty cheap PPPs having a GPS continuously tracking where you came from is also pretty comforting when dodging showers which is why I like to have the phone GPS as well!

Actually a magnetic compass is not that simple, you need to accurately swing the compass , which needs to be done with the engine running at various speeds and on a range of headings. Where you position it can be critical. Hence the development of gyroscopic heading devices. An accurate magnetic compass is expensive. A compass provides heading but not track. A 100 dollar Garmin etrex will give accurate track, can be mounted easily, (just needs to “see” the sky). It needs no ongoing adjustment. Cheers Peter

what is the legal requirement for a compass? I never use a magnetic compass anymore. they are prone to a multitude of errors and in my incredibly simple layout I have garmin GPS, ipad GPS, iphone GPS and I'm flying VFR so I can just look out the windscreen. My iphone and garmin etrex both have magnetic compass built in. That provides about 5 layers of redundancy with out a fitted/dedicated compass. Aren't we about simple flying? Peter

Hi all, I will be in Cairns this weekend, wondering if any aviators up this way would like to catch up. I have my own transport. cheers Peter

I will be in Cairns over the weekend and interested in catching up with any flyers Cheers Peter Onex VH-BHU Goolwa

If the aircraft is owner maintained, given the MPC from SAAA and the online course from RAAus, then the maintenance log may be beautifully kept with extensive notes all of which are meaningless because it tells you nothing of the mechanical competence of the author simply that he knows what to write where and what numbers to put next to his/her signature. I learnt nothing about the actual maintenance when I did my course.

I think you will also find it is easier to transfer GA to RAAus than the other way around. In theory the training costs from scratch to RPL should not be much different than to RPC. The only actual extra requirement is instrument time and some of that can be done on a simulator. If you find a school that does both then you can end up with both quite easily.

Hi Dave, I am also an intermittent visitor to home /Goolwa, currently based out of Cairns, home late June then late July heading back to the Arctic. I will be home part of September/October and would really appreciate a visit to the factory. The Onex is up and flying again after some engine modifications ( now have full inverted oil - mine is the only VW conversion I am aware of with this) . You are welcome anytime I am home. There is also a second Onex flying at Goolwa and I had the privilege of flying in tandem a couple of weeks ago. Peter

Please do keep us posted Dave, I am very interested to hear as much as possible about the whole project, cheers Peter

Less sexy but far, far cheaper would be a Sonex. The kits are predrilled, very complete, and with aJab 3300 a 120 knot cruise should be achievable. I built my Onex in 2and a half years whilst working full time, travelling a lot and still flying my old plane and doing my TW endorsement. I have found Sonex great to deal with, airframe is very robust and capable of basic aerobatics. better yet, go back to a single seat and build a Subsonex!

Bought it 4 years ago, using it for 2 years. I like the LEDs, the red shows up well and gets my attention! Has functioned perfectly.

I have the Belite slip indicator. LED’s arranged much like an analog gauge, have found it extremely good to use, turns red when slipping and green when balanced, if you checkout the YouTube video, cockpit view landing the Onex, you can see it working. If the gauge you have highlighted had been available when I built I would have bought it instead. In fact next time I pull the dash out I may well change over, thanks for sharing, Peter