FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

E-Flight Electric Waiex Achieves First Flight

December 3, 2010, Oshkosh, WI

The Sonex Aircraft, LLC E-Flight Initiative proof-of-concept electric-powered Waiex aircraft achieved its first flight today, December 3, 2010 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, WI. Piloted by Sonex Founder and E-Flight team leader John Monnett, N270DC made a short hop on runway 27, intended to be a conservative non-pattern flight to break ground-effect and analyze in-flight system performance as the next step in testing. This short flight punctuates four years of development by the E-Flight design team in engineering, building and testing one of the most advanced electric flight packages ever conceived.

“We are very proud of this achievement. The core design team of Pete Buck, Andrew Pearce, John Monnett, and myself would like to thank our staff, families, business partners, and friends in all of their help and understanding through this incredibly challenging project.” Said Jeremy Monnett, CEO and General Manager of Sonex Aircraft. “We have a flight envelope expansion plan and will be working on this in the coming weeks and months. We have also already started our motor v4.0 design and motor controller v12.0 to be integrated on N270DC. Many more great things to come on this project!”

“Every first flight of a new aircraft or powerplant design is an interesting experience,” said John Monnett, “but with N270DC more than any other aircraft we’ve built, I experienced just a glimpse of what the Wright Brothers must have felt like flying an unproven system for the first time. The flight was uneventful, as expected, but it represents a huge emotional victory for our team to check this item off the list.”

Data from today’s flight will be carefully analyzed by the design team and compared to high power ground run data to determine any necessary firmware adjustments before proceeding to full traffic pattern and extended-duration test flights. N270DC is a standard Waiex kit aircraft modified with the installation of proprietary E-Flight electric power components: The E-Flight 54kw brushless DC electric motor, E-Flight electronic motor controller, a 14.5kw-hr lithium polymer battery system, the E-Flight battery management system, and E-Flight cockpit instrumentation and controls.

The E-Flight Initiative electric flight project was first announced to the public at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2007, and many major milestones have been reported in the years to follow as the E-Flight design team worked on this exceedingly challenging project, designing and testing electric power components at the leading-edge of technology. There are many technical obstacles that the team has had to overcome along the way, learning valuable lessons about the technology at each step.

The E-Flight design team’s continuing progress can be followed on Sonex Aircraft, LLC’s Hornets’ Nest Research and Development web site at http://www.sonexaircraft.com/research. An E-Flight mailing list is also available to deliver automated notification of E-Flight progress web postings. 

Sonex Aircraft, LLC is a leader in the experimental kit aircraft industry, providing a series of Sport Pilot eligible kit aircraft and producing the AeroConversions line of products which include the AeroVee engine, AeroInjector and ancillary aviation products. Sonex Aircraft’s Sonex and Waiex sport planes, and the Xenos sport motorglider offer outstanding performance in an easy to build, easy to fly kit package that can be purchased and completed with full technical support at an unrivaled price. Sonex and AeroConversions product development is committed to providing simple, elegant and low-cost solutions for sport flying. Simply put, Sonex Aircraft and AeroConversions products provide the best performance per dollar. Check us out at www.SonexAircraft.com and www.AeroConversions.com

PRESS CONTACT:

Mark Schaible
Sonex Aircraft, LLC
www.SonexAircraft.com
Phone: (920) 231-8297
Fax:     (920) 426-8333
E-mail: mark@sonexaircraft.com

FIRST FLIGHT VIDEO:

VIDEO ALSO AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE AT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTCRJM9G0mU

HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD:

N270DB begins its taxi to Wittman's runway 27
Download High Resolution (300 dpi, 3.2mb JPEG file)

E-Flight Electric Waiex begins the takeoff roll
Download High Resolution (300 dpi, 2.3mb JPEG file)

N270DC climbs out of ground effect
with John Monnett at the controls.
Download High Resolution (300 dpi, 4.6mb JPEG file)

John Monnett (left) and Jeremy Monnett (right) share
a handshake and big smiles as they celebrate this
outstanding achievement.
Download High Resolution (300 dpi, 3.3mb JPEG file)

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE E-FLIGHT INITIATIVE: http://www.sonexaircraft.com/research/e-flight/

SUBSCRIBE TO THE E-FLIGHT MAILING LIST:
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/research/subscribe_form.html

SUBSCRIBE TO THE SONEX AND AEROCONVERSIONS PUBLIC RELATIONS MAILING LIST:
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/rss_info.html

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