It took a few weeks. The schedule was always full, or the weather was pretty much always garbage. Nothing that would lend itself to pulling the plane out of the garage.

Therefore, when I finally had the free time and a clear day over 40° F, the mission to breathe new life into the Sonex was on! (A buddy being available that day was a great bonus.Nothing like an extra set of hands moving even a light aircraft up and down my driveway.)

The Prep Work

I had no idea how old the fuel was in Sonex’s plastic tank. After all, the plane was sitting in the hangar for at least three years. Time to take my handy dandy shaker siphon off the wall. (These have been a great tool transferring fuel off the grid in Alaska as well.) Just about 8 gallons of aged “Aviation Blue” were removed.

I stopped by my local airfield’s self-service pump and got 5 gallons of fresh 100LL. In the aircraft it went, all with the same siphon.

You see, since about 2000’s, the US government mandated that all newly manufactured plastic gas cans had to do away with their old vent holes and free flowing nozzles. Instead, they had to be equipped with some sort of spring loaded gizmo and no vent that didn’t play nice with the laws of fluid dynamics. (The design has been improved over time, but still lacking.)

As a result, the well meaning owner of the new fangled can ends up with about a gallon of gas in his lawnmower with 2 gallons outside of it… Well done. But I digress…

Next up was the battery’s turn. The Odyssey PC625 seems to be a popular choice in the Sonex, so I wasn’t making any changes there. It’s technically a powersports battery, starting a modified VW automotive engine, but at least 1/3 of the weight and size of the passenger car equivalent. Easy install in minutes, as you’d expect.

Lastly, a quick once over the engine checking oil, looking for leaks of any kind. Everything’s connected as it should be. Let’s do this!

Re-positioning

My buddy and I wheeled the airplane down to the most “level” portion of my driveway. A good pilot always starts into the wind, the Sonex being positioned accordingly. Only now the wind started swirling from directions other than normal. Can’t win ’em all.

Without the wings on the airplane, I had to use a step ladder to get inside. Easily accomplished while my buddy held it in place. We went through a thorough briefing discussing what we were trying to accomplish, safety concerns and emergency procedures. That brings us to checklist time! “Pre-Start.” And now “Engine Start.”

It was really something to finally be seated in this bird, outside. Every new airplane brings it’s own starting procedure based on what engine and fuel system it is equipped with, and where all the switches and knobs are located.You almost need three hands for this one as the brakes are actuated by a hand lever on the stick. Two more are needed to work the fuel shutoff, mixture control and throttle. Let alone that cool starter button on the panel.

I will say that the “manual of arms” on this particular Sonex can use some tweaking. I’ll be doing just that to make the operation flows, well, flow!

The Moment of Truth

Fuel on until it reaches the carburetor, then off. Mixture rich, throttle cracked. Carb heat off. Master on, all four (4) ignition switches on, hold the brakes, yell “Clear Prop!” and press the starter button. Not hard, but a lot to take on in a new (to me) airplane.

Cranking…. (All the while ready to throw a hand over to push in the fuel cutoff after it takes.)

No attempt to fire up after a few seconds, release the button to give it a rest. Then try again.

This was the process for.. well I lost count of how many times I actually attempted to start it. The cold began taking a toll on the battery. As a result, we started losing our cranking power. The starter began making a grinding noise as I assumed I was overheating it.

It got so close to starting twice. So close. The first time, I went the wrong way with the throttle (how?!) and killed it. Second time it just wasn’t quite right.

Eventually, the call was made to stick a fork in it and try again another day. The only thing we were accomplishing was wasting fuel, while taking a real chance of either killing the battery or the starter. Neither a good option.

Scrubbed.

Takeaways

We didn’t attempt to preheat the engine before rolling it out of the garage. If I think back on my experience with air cooled motorcycles, I would typically have to put a space heater near the cylinders before starting on a day like it was. That is if I did not want to kill the battery trying.

So, we’ll either be preheating, waiting for a warm sunny day, or both before attempting to start again.

I can’t say enough about the Odyssey battery. We really gave it heck trying to get this thing started. It just kept on cranking, until we started pushing our luck. It’ll live on to fight another day. I always bought my powersports batteries from the auto parts stores, but I’m pretty impressed with this one. Was a little worried about getting one online, but it arrived quickly and undamaged.

In the meantime, I’ll be pulling the spark plugs, checking initial timing marks, and measuring fuel flow to the carburetor just to make sure. I once had a 9 cent washer ruin the day at a race track, don’t want to miss something silly like that on the airplane.

Until next time…

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

Henry Ford