E-Flight Electric Waiex Achieves First Flight

E-Flight Electric Waiex Achieves First Flight

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.² Said Jeremy
Monnett, CEO and General Manager of Sonex Aircraft. ³We 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!²

³Every first flight of a new aircraft or powerplant design is an interesting
experience,² said John Monnett, ³but with N270DC more than any other
aircraft we¹ve 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.²

Data from today¹s 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 team¹s continuing progress can be followed on Sonex
Aircraft, LLC¹s Hornets¹ 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 along with the
AeroConversions line of products which include the AeroVee engine, AeroCarb
and ancillary aviation products. Sonex Aircraft¹s 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
continue to invest heavily in developing new products. Our team 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