My son's friend is a Marine Corp V22 pilot-in-training and wants to buy an inexpensive plane to get back and forth from Pensicola to Texas. He is looking at a Sonex and asked for my opinion. Well, I don't really know the experimental market so I told him I'd ask a group of experts.

What do you all think of Sonex? Are they equivalent to the well-known Vans product line? Known gotchas or things to look out for?

From my little bit of research it seems to be a reasonably good company, kind of a Vans-lite.

This is the plane that has his interest:
https://www.barnstormers.com/classified ... atid=19003

Insurance is gonna kill him.

He needs to research the engine. The engine manufacturer is out of business. The design shares parts with Jabiru but that engine does not have the best reputation for reliability.

RV's are the gold standard among experimentals. If a used RV is out of the price range, I would suggest that airplanes in general are out of the price range.

His commanding officer is going to kill him the first time he gets stranded due to weather and can’t make a scheduled flight, if an associated case of get-home-itis doesn’t kill him first. Military flight student and airplane ownership are not compatible IMHO. Says the former USN flight instructor...

Discretion is probably the better part of valor here.

Aside from Mark's comments on the powerplant (I don't know enough to comment on the engine either way, but I would heed his concerns), I'd say it could be an economical cross country machine between Pensacola and Texas—if your travel plans are flexible by ± a few days that it sometimes takes for weather systems work their thing out—but probably not at this point in the young man's career.

(Like Chris, above, also former USN flight instructor- over the years I've seen a lot of ways that flight students get themselves in trouble.)

Apparently the folks on this forum aren’t into flying. You might ask about this Sonex on this Sonex forum:

https://sonexbuilders.net/search.php?se ... 43943eb787

Wow! That's harsh.

Nobody has said one bad thing about the Sonex itself.

A few people have commented that the plan isn't sound, and that would hold for a young pilot in a Sonex, a Zenith, or a Rans.

Keep the feedback coming, I'm sending this to him as we get it.

We've reached out to Tom H. to see if he is insurable. That may be the show stopper right there.

I have a few hours in a Sonex with the six cylinder engine. Its a very nice flying airplane with light responsive controls. Easy to land as tail draggers go. The six cylinder engine makes it a little fighter plane. On the one I flew, the cylinder temperature ran right at redline during climb on a moderately warm day. A little online research indicated this is common on the six cylinder engine. Some said it could be fixed with this or that baffling arrangement; others said it was no big deal as long as the temperature never went over redline. The one I flew never went over redline but climbed within a few degrees of the limit every time.

I’ve known several Air Force students who flew during their training and never knew one to get in trouble over it. That said, the ones I knew were smart about how they flew and didn’t try to sneak home over a weekend then get trapped by weather. One kid finished building and test flew his RV-8 during pilot training. He also graduated at the top of his class. Not your average young man.

This gets to the heart of the question, what is the mission? Pensacola to Texas could be anywhere from 350-1000 NM, all requiring a LONG flight over the Atchafalaya Swamp with nothing but I-10 causeway for an emergency landing site that won't try to eat you for lunch.

This is not a trip I would make with regularity in any machine with an engine built for economy rather than longevity and an avionics package named Enigma, just sayin

Back to the mission question, if the intrepid 2ndLt is wanting to fly between Pensacola and Corpus Christi (just a guess) that's 600 NM each way, or about 4.5 hours in a Sonex without a comfort stop. A young invincible Marine might be tempted to do this nonstop, which could be within range for a solo Sonex, but I'm pretty sure that would become a "never doing THAT again" situation along the Gulf Coast most months of the year.

This young officer needs to apply some SMEAC and decide what performance is required to achieve the mission with an acceptable level of risk, and THEN determine whether the budget and required performance curves intersect.

I think you'd need a decent instrument platform to do that trip with any sort of timetable. There's a lot of T-storms, fog, scud and mist along that coast. I know of a guy that does JAX--AUS somehat regularly in a C model Mooney, and he gets to overnight in some pretty out of the way places, even with his well used IFR rating.

The insurance company will most likely require some dual in the Sonex. You can find a Sonex experienced CFI that will travel to his location for training on the site that I provided the link for above.

One of the things that you learn after a couple of years into GA flying is that it is really not a reliable way to travel. “Got time to spare? Go by air.” If you want to make Florida to Texas all the time reliably I submit you need a Citation, King Air, PC12 or similar. A Sonex is not going to do it reliably, but neither is a Mooney, Bonanza or a Baron. But we still travel by GA because it is fun, basically, not because it is reliable. Let the kid have some fun with his Sonex! He will learn soon enough the limitations of GA. Although for this mission and budget I would recommend an IFR equipped Cessna 150.

Just my personal opinion
I wouldn't touch the australian engine. If you have me the plane with it i would throw away the engine and replace it with a rotax or VW-derivative.

Most of these things have a VW based engine because the rotax is $£€

nothing wrong with the VW based engine, I've flown behind one and will do so again. BUT i would strongly suggest a conventional carburetor. There are a lot of goofy fuel systems being run on VW engines and not surprisingly, fuel system problems account for most of the engine issues you hear about on these little planes. The carb you see great plains selling looks just like a farmall tractor carb. I would stick with something along those lines.