I am happy to report that N93PC took its first leap into the air yesterday afternoon since I bought it and rebuilt it. I had everything planned for the past few days and I snuck to the airport during a long lunch so my wife wouldn't be worried to death. I gave a co worker the phone number to the tower and asked him to call and see what happened to me if I wasn't back in a few hours.
The worst part of the flight was the drive to the airport. I had more butterflies in my stomach than when I got married or when my son was born. My legs and arms were numb and tingly and I was cold and shivering even though it was about 85 degrees. After I landed I noticed that my entire shirt was drenched with sweat. The flight itself was pretty uneventfull. I spent more time on the ground than I wanted because the airport was pretty busy. I had to wait for three other planes in front of me when I got to the runup area and I had to wait for three to land after I got to the hold short line. The tower wanted to get everyone else out of the pattern so I would have two runways to myself just in case. Takeoff was pretty simple. I had been doing high speed taxi runs for a week. This was the first one at full power so the tail came up pretty quick and the plane was very easy to control. When it wanted to fly I just pulled back a little and off I went. I had flown some with Mark Strothers and Jim Faughn so I knew exactly what to expect in the air. The plane was well behaved and easy to fly. I climbed at about 85 knots and started a left turn at 600'. I pretty much just kept going around with left turns up to 2,500' and stayed over the airport. I would have gone up to 5,000, but the ceilings were at about 3,000. The oil temperature did get close to redline about 2,000', but the CHT stayed about 40 degrees under red line. I suspect that this was from the long ground run followed by the climb. The temps were a lot better after I leveled off and reduced power. If anyone cares to comment on weather or not it is normal to get near redline after a 2,000' climb after running 20 minutes on the ground on an 85 degree day it would be appreciated. Once I got to altitude I pulled back to about 2,500 RPM and just kept going in rectangles. I found that the KR really likes to turn left with just me in it. I planned on normally keeping my wing tanks empty unless I was on a long cross country, but now I think I might just keep the right tank full when I fly alone. I made sure that the engine was still happy at idle and I did a few approaches to stalls just until it started to get mushy. I was pretty surprised at how much the KR would slow down and still keep flying. My airspeed indicator got down around 45 knots, but I don't know how accurate it is yet and I didn't look at the GPS. After about 40 minutes I got cleared to get back in the pattern when I was at 2,200 feet over the departure end of the runway. I throttled back to about 1,500 and went out a bit before I came back on downwind. I had to do a few circles to loose some altitude on the long downwind because the KR glides so good. I did try slipping some and the KR seemed to slip pretty good. I set up a long final that was high enough that I could glide in if I had to. The landing was pretty easy. I had a lot of grass before the runway so I got low after crossing the airport fence and I had a landing on the airport secured and I kept in a little power so I could touch down right at the threshold. I started my flare a little late, but I only did one 6" bounce. After I was on the ground I raised the tail again until it slowed and I was home free. I have read alot about KRs floating forever in ground effect, but I didn't get much float at all. It landed pretty much like a Cherokee, probably because I was able to get a slow stabilized approach long before the end of the runway. My overall impression is that the KR is a joy to fly and I can't wait till I fly it again. I still can't get the KR grin off my face.
