Again, the KR Gathering was an event which should not have been missed. What a great group of people!!!!!. You really missed some great camaraderie if you were not there. The very first arrival to the Gathering was a very nice fellow from Czechoslovakia. Pavilio (spelling ?) was his name but we nicknamed him Czech Dude and he loved it. Czech Dude was a great swimmer too as he made good use of the lake by the camp ground. We had planes flown in from all over the country. Many showed up on Thursday. Friday brought in a few more as well as Saturday. Orma Robbins would have won the most determined to fly to the Gathering as he had engine problems and finally arrived Saturday about two hours before the Gathering Banquet. Again the Gathering was well orchestrated and we have Larry Flesner to thank for that. Here is a big YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa to you Larry. Unfortunately a few KR Pilots were not able to stay for the whole weekend and had to depart early. We really missed those guys. The evenings brought camp fires and lots of great stories and probably even some tall tales. Especially when we began talking about whose KR was the fastest. There were all types of KR's there. Some were still under construction but flying. Some needed to be rebuilt but were still were flying. Some were show quality planes. But all the planes were beautiful!!!!!. It was a great pleasure to fly my plane to the Gathering as that kinda of put the icing on my building process. Getting to the Gathering in your own KR can only be compared to an accomplishment such as reaching the summit of Mt Everest. Prime Rib was served at the Banquet Saturday night along with chicken. What a meal that was. I have got to quit eating so good cause Langford's plane can easily out run mine. We went up for a photo shoot as Langford led the way, behind him was Brian Kraut in his Midget Mustang the me. I was about 1/4 mile behind Brian and he did a barrel roll right in front of me. Too Cool!!!! On another flight, I chased Jim Faughn all over the sky and we executed many low passes and missed approaches which were really high speed passes. What a blast as I played follow the leader behind Jim. On a couple of passes he banked about 80° and made abrupt pull ups. I followed but not as severe. The skies brought us extreme high heat and very hazy conditions. Visibility was very low. Most of the time it was marginal VFR at the best. This raised the question should we do the Gathering late Sept or early October for cooler temps and hopefully better skies. This will be discussed later. And as a final note, it was voted on at the banquet to keep the 2006 Gathering in Mt Vernon. More on that later too. Hope everyone made it home safe.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI USA E-mail me at flyk...@wi.rr.com Visit my KR-2S CorvAIRCRAFT web site at http://mywebpage.netscape.com/n886mj
