Hello Airplane, Buh-Bye Money

Wow! That happened fast! I was shopping for a glider, but I put a deposit on a Sonex Waiex?!?

The story, from the beginning:

I look at airplane classifieds a lot - I am generally looking at the Barnstormers Experimental listings at least once a day (it's a bit of an obsession). Every once and a while I see a deal, but I am generally not compelled to act. In the case of N14YX, I was.

I have been following Sonex Aircraft for quite some time. I like the simplicity of their designs and that they deliver a fair bit of performance per dollar (both up front, and per hour of flight). At Oshkosh in 2010, I had the opportunity to sit in a few Sonex cockpits, talk to the Monnetts and other factory reps, and take a tour of the factory. I saw nothing that gave me a bad feeling. John Monnett can seem stubborn and tough-headed when you talk to him, but he has his ideas of what is right and sticks to them. I admire that, though I may not always agree.

As a glider pilot, the Xenos had my eye from the beginning as an economical touring motorglider. Unfortunately, out of the Sonex line, the Xenos is the least common and they do not come up for sale often. Given that I am in the military and move every few years, I was not interested in building myself because I did not want to face having to move an unfinished project with the next posting or two. 

I saw the ad for N14YX early in the morning (at 05:30 on July 9th) as I was having breakfast before heading to work for an overnight trip to Sandspit, BC. She was well equipped and at $15,000 USD looked too good to be true. I called the seller, Joel Fuller, immediately and left a message. During the bike ride to work I got to thinking ...

Pros:

• Priced at less than the price of a Waiex Complete Airframe Kit ($15,995 USD at the time of writing) alone ... not to mention engine, instruments, avionics, paint, hardware, and handy upgrades to the basic kit from Sonex (pre-assembled spars, machined angle component kit)
• Well equipped for day VFR
• Dynon EFIS-D10A and EMS-D10 digital instrumentation
• XCOM radio
• Microair Transponder
• 406 MHz ELT

Cons:

• Location: KLVN, Airlake Airport (Lakeville, Minnesota - south of Minneapolis)
• Unproven: the aircraft has flown only 10 hours
• Aircraft has been sitting for six years
• Phase 1 flight testing (40 hrs) not complete

Misc:

• AeroVee engine

Photos from the ad on Barnstormers:

  

The getting the aircraft home to Canada was certainly going to have its challenges, but I figured that, given the price, at any point in the process I could sell the airplane and not get totally hosed.

Joel called me back as I was flight planning at work at approximately 07:30. We had a brief conversation and I knew that he was about to be flooded with calls and emails so I asked him if he would take a small deposit to hold the aircraft so I could arrange to go see it. He agreed and I told him I would contact him that evening and send him a deposit via PayPal.

Once settled into the hotel at the end of the day, I gave Joel a call to send him some money. He informed me that another fellow, local to Minneapolis, had called. Joel decided to let this fellow (let's call him Buyer #1) take a look at the airplane first. Reasonable, yes, but I was pretty disappointed. I was kicking myself and thinking that I should have sent a token deposit immediately after getting off the phone with Joel.

Upon returning from Sandspit the following day (July 10th), I checked my email. It had news from Joel: he showed the aircraft to Buyer #1 and Buyer #1 decided that he wasn't ready to buy. Was I? Willing to gamble $200 USD (as a non-refunable deposit for Joel) and the cost of an airline ticket, I guess I was.

The adventure begins ...