Larry Oppegaard's Sonerai Project

Our Skycoupe's previous owner, Larry Oppegaard, was so inspired by what he saw at the Skukworks, that he recently acquired a Sonerai project, one of John Monnett's (Sonex/Waiex) best-known early designs. Larry send comments and imagees below on the airframe and engine.

Thanks for sending the article about the Sonerai. I saw that there were a lot more items of interest in the Experimenter newsletter, so I re-joined EAA. I had been a member since about 1972, then let it go back in 1995. I’m glad to get involved again.

I have stripped my Sonerai project down to the bare fuselage frame, and will repaint it with white epoxy. I need to fabricate the front seat frame and flight controls, which someone had removed earlier. The wings need nothing, so they are just stored against my garage wall. I need to find a welding rig for borrowing or renting to weld up the steel tubes.

The engine is an 1834cc VW conversion with a Zenith carb. The wings, which fortunately need no work, are all aluminum. I flew one back in the 90’s and it was very responsive, with a top speed of 130 mph in level flight. The Sonerai is stressed for basic aerobatics. The wings can be made to fold for trailering, but mine doesn’t. There are several U-tube videos available.

Best Regards,

Larry