On Saturday, May 21, we drove to
Rio Linda Airport for the 6th Annual Northern California
Sonex Fly-in. Wow! The Sonex is one of the most amazing light aircraft designs out there. The airframe is filled with cute little tricks that make the construction simple yet strong. The design has an excellent track record and many dedicated followers. One aircraft that taxied in was powered by a
Jabiru 3300 engine. For reference, for those who haven't been there: it sounded no louder than a lawn mower; clearly, this is a very refined and well-muffled engine.
Unsurprisingly, today, my son Aden (6yo) wanted a Sonex of his own. I copied the 3-view from the Sonex website into my CAD program and made some very simple cutting diagrams. We then cut stencils out of paper:
We cut the parts out of balsa:
We then attached everything with a glue gun:
I then made him a quick and dirty nose with scrap balsa. The result is a happy little Sonex fan:
