Sonex and Gabriel DeVault Partner on Electric Kitplane

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Sonex and Gabriel DeVault have partnered to create an electric kitplane, marketing components for a different type of powerplant.  Sonex has been in the kitplane business since 1998 (having built from a decade’s-old earlier company) and Gabriel DeVault has been working with the electrification of aircraft for a decade.  Combining their expertise, we have a kit built path toward an inexpensive electric kitplane. Gabriel commutes a lot by air, traversing the globe between his home in Watsonville, California and Cranfield, England for work on Zero Avia’s electrification of Dornier 228s – one in each country.  He flies between Watsonville and Hollister, California in his Zero Motorcycle powered eXenos, a kit built product from Sonex Aircraft in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  Before that, he flew a Mark Beierle eGull powered with a Zero motor.  Gabriel was instrumental in the design and manufacturing of that motor, making him a bona fide expert on the powerplant. His experience with the eXenos has led Sonex to …

Electric Waiex Makes First Hop

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

On Friday, December 3, Sonex Aircraft, LLC achieved a long-sought goal at Wittman Field, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, successfully flying their electric two-seater Waiex.  Unveiling their craft at the 2007 AirVenture on the same field as part of their E-Flight Initiative, the team quietly and with some back-to-the-drawing-board resolve worked for the next three years to solve the many problems that confront any group reaching for that elusive next best thing.  Evidence of this are the version numbers on the motor and controller as noted in Sonex CEO and General Manager Jeremy Monnet’s comment.  “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!” Having seen Peter Buck’s video of early testing at the Experimental Soaring Association’s fall workshop in 2008, in which the controller self-immolated (later found to be the classic loose wire scenario) this writer was impressed with the openness of the presentation and the reminder that such developments are never as …