I got about 45 minutes of flight time in on the KR while celebrating the 100th anniversery of flight. I made two three point "greaser" landings to make up for the landing on my first flight.
Problems so far: Engine rpm still lower then expected. I called Ed Sterba and he will check my prop to see if it has warped in the 10 years since I purchased it, check it for balance (I have a slight vibration) and will repitch it if necessary, all at no charge. Can't beat that deal. I plan to throw on a set of wheel covers to do a speed run, do a compresson test, and take an accurate tach read with a remote tach before sending the prop back. Indications are I should only be down for a couple weeks. I checked out the heavy wing thing a bit more. It only gets heavy (very slightly) at cruise. At about 110K's it flies hands off, well as hands off as a KR will fly. It's such a "nit" for now I probably won't mess with it. I'm not ready to fly straight and level for awhile anyway. :-) I did one slowdown to near stall before putting it away for the day. Power at idle, holding altitude, it slowed until the airspeed needle rested on the peg at 40K's. There was no buffet, no need for control input to keep the wings level or nose on course. At one point it felt like it wanted to bobble and drop the nose but I flew out at that point. I'll try to get a GPS speed at some point. It rolls into 30 degree bank turns with no tendenancy to pitch the nose up or down and it tracks right around the turn solid as a rock. I tested the speed brake a bit more. I haven't done any speed checks with brake up/down but I did note that as the brake comes down it causes the nose to pitch down which is the way it should be. I'm sure I could get used to flying the KR without it but I'm already convinced it's the only way to go. Once I get the pucker out of my seat and the grin off my face I'll get into some serious testing with some numbers and try to get them posted. THIS THING IS GREAT !!!!! Merry Christmas to all......... Larry Flesner Carterville, Illinois
