Smithsonian displays 'One Week Wonder'

More than 2,200 volunteers helped build the aircraft in seven days, some placing as little as a rivet, to be recorded as a builder in return. The finished aircraft, dubbed ”One Week Wonder,“ made its first flight about two weeks after the show, on August 18.

It then became a part of EAA’s aircraft collection until the Smithsonian accepted it for permanent display in the Boeing Aviation Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center, representing amateur-built and recreational aircraft in the same facility that houses a wide range of personal and historical aircraft, including the space shuttle Discovery and an Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde.

EAA Director of Chapters, Communities and Homebuilt Community Manager Charlie Becker, who accompanied the Waiex-B on the trip to its new home, said, “Thousands of people participated in the building of this ‘One Week Wonder’ at Oshkosh just a few years ago to show that building your own airplane is attainable. Now as many as a million people every year will see this aircraft as an example of a modern kit aircraft that can be built with simple hand tools by just about anyone.”

Sonex LLC is located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and offers several “cost-effective and efficient aircraft kits,” according to its website. The Waiex-B is a two seat, Y-tail aircraft powered by a Rotax 912iS engine. The kitplane can be built for $51,228, according to the Sonex website, and depending on the engine—apart from the Rotax, customers are able to choose from an AeroVee or AeroVee Turbo, UL Power 206 and 350 series, and a Jabiru 3300—it can reach speeds up to 170 mph and fly more than 500 miles on 20 gallons of fuel.

“This airplane will impress visitors with the innovation and technology that is everywhere in the homebuilding movement and recreational aviation,” said Russell Lee, curator of homebuilt aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum. “Although one of the smallest airplanes displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center, its power to excite visitors about the freedom of flight equals the largest aircraft displayed here.”