I’ve been reading these forums, and sonexbuilders.net before that, and the Yahoo groups before that, and watching videos, and listening to the SonexFlight podcast, and thinking and pondering and considering and dreaming of building an airplane for many years. I’m happy to share that 2026 is the year that I’m building an airplane.
The goal is to plans-build a Legacy Sonex but I’m fully prepared to move to a kit build for any variety of reasons. I haven’t cut or drilled or bent a piece of metal on this airplane yet, but I have my tools and hardware and garage relatively squared away and ready to go – so let today be the starting gun on my new build(!)
Looking forward to meeting many of you in person and showing you my airplane at an AirVenture sometime in the future. In meantime, thanks to Evan for getting a Sonex forum up and running again, and thanks to the many contributors who have taken on the challenge of answering questions and documenting proven methods for those of us who, to put it politely, have a lot to learn :).
Best of luck on the build. You will NEVER find a better set of plans than the original Sonex plans. Just remember to start on the last page of each section and you will be finished with that section when you finish page one.
Bryan is right. If you are in a hurry and want to save some coin, keep an eye out for someone who is selling. I picked up a complete Onex kit for about 12K. The only thing the original builder had started was the tail. I will add, if you have never built a plane before, you will find plenty of challenge building from a kit.
Thanks Bryan & Wes for the kit insight. Shameful admission: I’ve had a second hand kit sitting in my garage and attic gathering dust for years. I got a good deal on it at the time and figured at minimum I would need welded components, fiberglass, canopy, fuel tank, etc., so that made it worth it to buy. It’s my backup plan if the plans building doesn’t go well, but since I know I’m going to mess up many parts along the way I thought I might as well get some experience fabricating them from raw metal. We’ll see how it goes, but I have the backup plan ready to bail me out should it be necessary.
I’ve scratch built most of a Hummelbird, which I plan to finish someday. I’d also like to scratch build a PA18. So I understand the pull to scratch build. What scratch building offers over a kit is 15% skills, 85% tedium. With that kit in hand, I’d use it! You will get the skills anyway.
Edit: the hardest skill is actually finishing the darn thing.
Ha - great point. That tedium ratio is pretty lopsided. And I suspect most of this forum would agree with both you and Wes that there’s more than enough challenge in just building an airplane, even if from the kit. We’ll see how tolerant of the tedium I am but I’m definitely keeping an open mind about it.
Dan - I just watched your fabrication video for the end cap to an aileron or flap yesterday and it reminded how many great videos you have out there. Great work and keep it up! Super helpful to many of the rest of us.
Since I’ve got you here…do you cover your corrosion protection scheme in any of the videos? I can’t tell from the titles but it looks like you’re clearly doing some sort of gray corrosion protection. Would be interested to know what you’ve settled on.
I’m using some self-etching automotive primer. It’s not necessary, but I’m doing it for two reasons:
With stainless steel rivets and aluminum skins, there is a very small chance of electrolysis occurring. I live in Maryland and it’s very humid and I’m not too far from the brackish water of the Chesapeake Bay. Just a little more protection from a very unlikely case of corrosion.
But mainly it’s because I plan to do some kind of warbird paint scheme and want to make sure I have primer coverage around my rivets.
Our EAA chapter received a donated, partially built kit from an estate after the owner passed away. We sold it to one of the chapter members for $1000. It needs a few things fixed, didn’t come with wings or plans, but a great deal nonetheless. He bought a set of plans and he’s doing a really good job on it. It’s great to see both him and that kit come to life.
I purchased an orphaned kit that has been sitting in a hangar for 10 to 20 years. The nice thing is you can decide which parts you fabricate and which parts you purchase. Just don’t use the US postal Service for delivery. I tried, it took 2 months to get delivery.
Thanks Dan. I’m contemplating corrosion protection because that has to start pretty immediately no matter what part I start working on. I live in Central Texas far from any beaches or oceans, but my wife loves the coast and I imagine many three day trips with my plane parked at KRAS a 1/2 mile from the beach under the constant humidity and salt filled ocean wind and wonder if I need to protect against that.
All of these fantastic deals on kits - I don’t know whether that means we’re super lucky (easy access to airplane kits!) or unlucky (super low resale value) but I always like to default to the optimism. These should be the cornerstone of high school build programs at these prices.
