Farewell N125YX

What a Beauty!

On 28-October-2018 I acquired N125YX, an Experimental Sonex Waiex. She was built by a gentleman located at 4A9 in Fort Payne, Alabama. His story is a sad and unfortunate one, that I do not have permission to share, but it led to his wife deciding to part ways with this beauty.

With a Southwest Airline ticket in hand, here we go from KODO to KATL to meet up with Kip. On the ground we walked for what seemed like several miles to find the rental car counter. Rental car acquired, now on for a two hour drive to 4A9. Oh wow, there she is, the excitement is indescribable knowing I have purchased my first aircraft. After some conversation and checking things out, Kip takes Randy (my instructor) up for a flight to get acquainted with the aircraft. All went well, and it's now time to start our journey back home to KODO (Odessa, TX) with N125YX.

The first video to the right is when it was first started up. The sound of the Jabiru 3300 - "Oh Yeah!" The second clip is the very first take-off with Randy and Kip as I watched anxiously!

All checks complete, it's time to commit aviation in my first personally owned aircraft. Now, by this time I have built up just over 200 hours (just enough to get myself in trouble, hence my instructor is with me) and have been doing transition training in a Sonex Xenos. I have my tailwheel endorsement and I am working on my instrument rating. It is late in the afternoon (around 16:00) and we wanted to get at least one leg of the 852 nm trip done, get a hotel, get some rest, and get an early start the next morning.

The first leg landed us at KTUP (Tupelo, MS) where we were met with great folks who gave us a courtesy car for the night, and directed us to the nearest hotel. We got checked in, grab a bite in the hotel restaurant and called it a night. I'm a morning person, so 06:00 could not come soon enough, and getting much rest was difficult due to all the excitement.

The trusty ole' courtesy car, got us a quick breakfast from McDonalds on the way back to the airport to finish our trip home in N125YX. We departed KTUP bound for KELD (El Dorado, AR) as our first fuel stop. Crossing the Mighty Mississippi was quite the site! Topped of with a whopping 16 gallons we were off again for our next leg to KGVT (Greenville, TX).

Our stop in Greenville was non-eventful (just how we like it) and another 16 gallon top off puts us bound for KABI (Abilene, TX). We land, top off with 16 gallons for the last time before N125YX is at its new home for a while.

I gained a tremendous amount of experience in this little aircraft. It flies well, it's a ton of fun, and if your patient it can go the distance. In fact, my first trip to Oshkosh was in N125YX in 2019. There, I met great people, met many who are part of a great community, and was able to experience the greatest aviation event known to man all while camping right next to the wing of N125YX.

I took N125YX up every chance I had to practice maneuvers, go for $100 hamburger, and just to be in the air. It is the simplest form of flying, without all the complex systems and lets you focus on just becoming a better pilot. For that I will cherish my time owning N125YX, a Sonex Waiex.

When I acquired my Sonex it fit the mission perfectly. Fly as much as possible for the purpose of gaining experience, having fun, meeting up with friends, and an occasional long x-country flight. As time moves on, grand babies come along, and "mama" wants to be closer to those grand babies, and back closer to "home" my mission changes drastically. I now fly a ~510 nm (one way) x-country nearly weekly to be home with my family on weekends, and then back to work for the week. On my trips back home I almost always encounter IMC, therefore its time for a change to match my machine to my mission. With that, in September of 2020 I reluctantly parted ways with N125YX who now resides near Seattle, Washington with whom I hope enjoys her as much as i did! So, Farewell N125YX: https://youtu.be/ZiTkPiSMZgE, and Thank You for the good times!