What is Sonex Aircrafts approach to propeller selection and how does Sonex Aircraft measure and compare performance with the various propeller manufacturers?
After 30 years of testing hundreds of different propellers in a quest to achieve maximum performance out of a wide range of airframe and engine combinations, there are many things we have learned. Generally, performance increases will happen in very small increments when using different propeller makes and models. In rare cases, you can see huge performance increases when the first prop is totally “out of the performance box”. With the two companies we have been working with, Sensenich and Prince, they have been very close to an optimized prop with their first design. When measuring performance, it is very important to do an “apples vs. apples” comparison. This means flying the props you wish to compare in identical atmospheric conditions flown on a triangular course to account for wind speed and direction. Sonex Aircraft, LLC has developed a very large database of prop performance over the past 10 years for all 3 of our standard engine options…not only from our own prop tests (appro
