Wantaberacer
New Member
Hi everyone! This is Patrick and I have been interested in the Sonerai design for about 15 years. Love the concept of the airplane, but always wondered what it's flight characteristics where similar to
Thanks for the response. How's the visibility on landing. I have almost all my time flying from the front seat of a Citabria.
BilThat's just about right... Ken Anderson wrote a book in which he recounts flying nearly every Homebuilt around, including some from Europe. He writes, "Sonerai is a Completely Honest airplane." What that means practically speaking is if built to the plans, then whatever you tell it to do with the controls it does that, until you tell it something else. OR in other words it has neutral stability. If you take your hands and feet off the controls, it does NOT return to straight and level. It does what you told it to do. SO, you bring your A-game when you fly it.
In my case the Sonerai II I bought came with a Jabiru 2200 engine weighing 120 lbs. So the builder lengthened the engine mount to 10", to correct forr CofG. . That entailed a 10" longer cowling. That additional area, compromised the neutral stability in YAW. I found a drawing created by Ed Fischer from Idaho in which he enlarged the Vertical fin which corrected the yaw issue,. I based my empennage on his drawing but also increased the rudder by say 40%. Transport Canada's graduate engineers approved it.
Now if I press a rudder pedal to the floor and the aircraft yaws out say 20 degrees on the ball indicator, then release the rudder it comes back to say 5 degrees from neutral, the same each way,. If I advanced the throttle, the yaw would decrease further.
A jabiru 3300 A engine became available and I installed it. I get say 3300 rpm in fast cruise delivering `127hp and somewhere between 180-200 knots. It's just breathtaking to fly at altitude at 3300 rpm.
S0 building this aircraft to the plans really matters. Before you change anything, fly it and what you though you wanted to change will become inconsequential, and you'll find out on test flight what you really NEED.
Bill Evans
ps I love my Sonerai, love to fly it,
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