The SubSonex is an experimental, single-seat, amateur-built

jet aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, je ...

from

Sonex Aircraft Sonex Aircraft, LLC is an American kit aircraft manufacturer located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, producing kits for four all-metal homebuilt monoplanes. The company was founded in 1998 by John Monnett, who has designed the Monnett Sonerai sport ai ...

's "Hornet's Nest" development division.

Design and development

The JSX-1 is a single place, single engine, jet aircraft similar in design to an Onex, with a

Waiex The Sonex, Waiex and Xenos are a family of lightweight, metal, low-wing, two seat homebuilt aircraft. Kits are produced and marketed by Sonex Aircraft, a small manufacturer based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. By 2014, 500 customer built aircraft h ...

style Y tail, fixed main landing gear and a retractable nosewheel. It was introduced at AirVenture 2009. It is powered by a Czech-built

PBS TJ100 The PBS TJ100 is a Czech turbojet engine produced by PBS Velká Bíteš. The TJ100 engine entered service in 2003, and is the most popular of PBS's turbojet engines as more than 1,000 engines have been sold to 40 countries worldwide. The engin ...

turbojet engine mounted above the aft fuselage, with the exhaust exiting between the Y-tail. The SubSonex achieved first engine test runs in December 2009. The engine produces 1100 N (240 lb) of thrust. Originally developed with only a central mono pod wheel, tail wheel and small wing tip outriggers, the prototype exhibited directional controllability problems during taxi-tests. The production model of the SubSonex is the JSX-2. The landing gear was changed to a fully retractable, pneumatically-operated, tricycle configuration. It was flight tested by Jet-sailplane performer Bob Carlton in August 2011.Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015-16'', page 126. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015. At AirVenture 2013 the company began taking

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

10,000 deposits on production kits. The projected price of the kit was US$125,000 in 2013 and US$135,000 in 2014. The first JSX-2 kit was shipped to a customer in February 2015, and was completed and flown in October 2015.

Operational history

By January 2022, 17 examples had been registered in the United States with the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

Variants

;JSX-1 :

Prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

version.

;JSX-2 :Second version with a BRS parachute, wider fuselage, more streamlined nose, and fully retractable undercarriage. Bob Carlton performed the first test flight with the prototype JSX-2 on 10 July 2014 from Wittman Field. Entered production as an amateur-built kit in the fall of 2014. ;JSX-2T :Two-seats in

side-by-side configuration Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

version announced in July 2019. It will use the same PBS TJ-100 turbojet engine with the PBS TJ-150 as an option. The design is projected to offer a cruise speed of over and an estimated useful load of . The aircraft was expected to be first publicly displayed at Airventure in July 2020, but the event was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. ;NASC Tracer :Twin-jet

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

model for military and civil applications, designed by Sonex and the

Navmar Applied Sciences Corporation Navmar Applied Sciences Corporation is an American engineering company. Operations Navmar provides engineering and technical solutions in the area of acoustics, electronics, aerodynamics, systems engineering, prototyping, sensors, electro-optics ...

(NASC)

Specifications (JSX-2)

References

External links