Newbie. Dumb pre-sales questions.

[fastj22]

I've flown my Sonex from Colorado to Airventure twice with my son. Very tight quarters, almost no baggage, but the Sonex is pretty quick and we were able to do it in 6.5 hours. If looking for a fast, no frills, XC machine, perhaps its a better choice.

[DesertFox4]

Kind of wondering how many million cross country miles an aircraft design has to fly before it is finally considered cross country capable? John and Paul have pretty much proven that about the Kitfox all by themselves.

Why leave all your baggage at home, give up comfort in the cockpit or STOL performance and economy of operations? After flying the latest Kitfox on many cross country trips, I would highly recommend it.

You may get to your destination a little faster in some other designs, but you'll never get there funner.

[Rodney]

If you have some patience, sooner or later a Kitfox like you want, or very close to it will come along.

I bought a beautiful 7SS all decked out with an AFS 4500 EFIS, two axis auto pilot, mode S xponder and Icom A210. The previous owner tied my Ifly 720 into the auto pilot before I flew it home. Airplane weighs 819 lbs. 912ULS had 130 hous on it when I got it. Am doing my best to wear out the engine

The Kitfox with altitude hold, tracking the GPS is a wonderful cross country airplane. It can carry all the baggage we need and still climb twice as fast as my previous 172. My wife loves how smooth the Rotax is.

Building is great,but I saved three years of building time by finding my dream Kitfox.

Don't settle for a lesser airplane. Can you tell???? I love my Kitfox

Regards
Rodney

[kitfox2009]

Last June I flew my 16 year old Vixen to the Yukon. Due to weather I elected to fly the Trench north bound and Dease Lake south bound. Trip is about 980 nautical miles either way. I file for 90 knots and it usually comes close.Fuel burn 15 litres hour. Two fuel stops each way. Lots of daylight in June so I flew over 10 hours each way.
From my crosscounry experiences ,quite often weather will be your limiting factor for most longer excursions. Even if you go all out with pressurization,oxygen,auto pilot, and more importantly YEAR'S OF EXPERIENCE weather will still come in to play.
I like the suggestion of renting a 150 for a weekend and do a 1000 miler before you get too spendy on your KF.
These airplanes are fun to fly. Take your time, Enjoy the trip.
Cheers
Don
Vixen 912UL IVO IFA. C-FOXK

[tx_swordguy]

I guess I just assumed you would be flying these long trips with a passenger. If you are doing this solo you would probably be perfectly fine in any of the kitfoxes. If you are packing 2 into a 39" wide cabin for 10 hrs of flying with baggage etc, I am thinking it might get cramped. There are baggage pods available, but shoulder etc room on multi day 10 hr flights would likely be something to think about. If you have a willing passenger and are only doing this once a yr it will probably be ok. If your passenger likes to "spread out" on long trips and gets irritated easily, the trip might not be so fun in a cramped cockpit. The problem comes into what is wanted vs what is affordable. My wife aks "what about the kids, and dogs, and all my luggage?" Sorry baby I can't afford an 8 passenger twin and the kids are grown and don't go anywhere with us anyway......... for 99% of my flying it will be solo.

ps. it is not that the kitfox isn't a cross country airplane, many have proven it is quite capable at that. You can ride cross country on a bicycle but you won't find me doing it (at least not with the wife lol). It is like anything else, a compromise. If it does one thing REALLY good it probably won't be quite as good at doing something else. (speed/comfort vs FUN, STOL, birds eye view of everything)

[HighWing]

I ran onto this link a couple of days ago. I think it addresses some of the questions in this thread pretty well.
http://www.teamkitfox.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=355

[happiestflying]

I bought a Kitfox IV Speedster in Colorado last summer, never having flown around there. I returned it to Washington state. I got my certificate mid-life, now a 650 hour pilot and have had a tailwheel endorsement for 10 years, though it was totally rusty prior to buying the Speedster.

The pre-purchase inspection, necessary repairs, condition inspection, and tailwheel refresher took almost two weeks. Longer than I'd hoped, but absolutely worth all the time, as it allowed me flight planning time. My choices were essentially northbound along the front range of the Rockies and then westbound from Montana (which portion of the route I'd flown about five times previously), or westbound over the Rockies and northwestbound through Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Washington where I'd never flown, and which has a lot of lonely and empty. After a lot of consultation with my own gurus and with local pilots in Colorado I chose a zero-dark-thirty departure westbound over the Rockies and then northwestbound as indicated. All went well.

For navigation I of course had sectionals and AFD's etc, but fundamentally I relied on my iPad 2 (without GPS) and Foreflight Pro($150). I put a suction-cup mount ($25) on the panel, with a velcro fuzzy on the mount, and have velcro hooks on the back of the iPad. The velcro allows me to quickly remove and replace it on the mount, should I need to have it in my lap for revising something or clarification. That prevents finger-jiggle errors. It IS possible to create a flight plan in flight, but best done on the ground. I had a Dual XGPS-160 ($150) which synced with both the iPad and my iPhone, giving me precision navigation, with Foreflight giving me terrain alerts, estimated ranges etc. I would NOT fly without such an arrangement again. Now, for purposes of the legalities, the sectionals and pilotage were my primary navigational tools, but for purposes of reality the iPad/Foreflight combination was awesome.

Since then I have purchased/constructed (assembled really) a Stratux ADSB-In dual unit ($125) which syncs with the aforementioned equipment and gives me weather and traffic alerting (for ADSB-OUT equipped aircraft at least) and is almost the last missing link. If you were willing to pay close to $1,000 you could buy the Stratus 2 unit which would give you synthetic vision and 3D terrain. Fundamentally, for a few thousand dollars at most you can have in your cockpit the capabilities that previously required tens of thousands of dollars.

I'll admit that there's a certain amount of cockpit clutter in this arrangement, but I've positioned most everything in the cleanest way possible, and have arrived at a working solution that is flexible, powered by the USB cigarette lighter on the panel, and allows in-flight changes and reviews from both the iPad and the iPhone.

This changes the game for your aircraft purchase options. Find a Kitfox that you like that has the flying characteristics, landing gear and power options that you want, and don't worry so much about the panel. Learn to fly the airplane and enjoy it for what it is, something that's low and slow, fun as all get out, and can in fact be a cross-country bird if you want. By the time you actually get around to that wonderful-sounding Alaska excursion you'll be completely comfortable with all the capabilities I've described above.

Best of luck and safe flying.

[enewmen]

Hi all.

Thank you for all the posts.
I still see a Kitfox in my future, but I'll change my goals a little. First I'll build/buy a plane with basic instrumentation & radio and just enjoy the kind of flying the Kitfox is good at. I'll also get experience flying without the fancy glass, synthetic vision, checking weather reports without the help of real-time weather maps, flying strait for long distance without an autopilot, etc. If I need GPS later, I can get hand-held solutions like happiestflying suggested. Yes, I still plan to fly cross-country & solo usually, so the weight limits shouldn't be a problem. When I'm ready for a 2nd plane, I'll understand better what I need and it may be decked out like my original plan.

I thought of getting better performance using a turbo at altitude with oxygen, but the kitfox is still a LSA and just not that kind of plane. If I put on a powerful Rotax 915 iS, I think I can exceed 150mph TAS @ > 10000', but that will exceed the Vne.

Why fly from the the Bahamas to Anchorage? Because I've never been there, so I don't know if I will like it! I also don't know if I'll like such a long/slow flight. First I'll rent a plane to see if I like flying all day - I expect I will.