After work I headed to the airport and finished up my carb heat and ram air installation. I had to make some mods and now it works like a charm. At 6pm, I called for taxi to the active and proceeded to runway 28. After a run up and a short wait for a spam can to land, I was given cleared for takeoff, climb to 2000' then turn on course. I firewalled the throttle and the KR sprang to life. Wow, with this new Sensenich prop and good cool air into the carb, I could tell the difference immediately as she picked up speed really fast. 40...50...60...65...70...rotate and she popped right up into the air. I glanced over at the rpm and she was turning 3300. I settled in at 100 mph indicated and had a reading of 1250 fpm climb. I could feel the power like I had never felt from this engine before. At 2000' I turned on course and continued to climb to 4000'. There I leveled off and trimmed her up. RPM was now settled at 3400 and the airspeed settled in at 145mph indicated. The GPS was reading 152mph ground speed. I was excited at these numbers as these were better than I have seen before. I turned toward my old home airport of Hartford which was 19 miles away. It did not take but a few minutes to get there. On the way I noted that my CHT was 325, Oil temp was 200 and oil pressure was 40. The engine was smooth as could be. I began a descent into Hartford and turned on a three mile final and greased one in. I took a short break there, checked for oil leaks and found none. Not even a drop on the plane. Wow, that was a first. I must have done a really good job with the rebuild as far as sealing the engine up. Takeoff from Hartford produced the same climb out numbers. I climbed back up to 4000' and headed down to my house 20 miles away. I passed over at 145 indicated but had a tail wind this time which gave me 159mph on the ground speed per the GPS. This is way too much fun. All I kept thinking was how much faster I will go when I install the wheel pants. At one point, my rpm was indicating over 3500 in a shallow descent. My tach only goes to 3500. That was the first time I had ever seen the rpm exceed the tach capabilities.Way too much fun....did I already say that? One hour had passed and I decided to turn towards Waukesha (UES) airport where I am now based so I called the tower and reported 9 miles out inbound for landing. The tower told me to report left downwind for 28. There were three other planes inbound at the same time and we were all about the same distance out. When I reported entering downwind I was cruising at 140 indicated and the tower told the three spam cans to extend their turns because there was a fast experimental in the pattern. Man, did that make me feel good. After the tower set up the three spam cans behind me, a Citation called in from about 15 miles out inbound. At this point I was turning final indicating 120mph and set up on a perfect approach. At touch down I was indicating 70 and made a turn off about 1/3rd the way down the runway. It was neat watching the three span cans come in behind me and then the Citation as I taxied back to my hanger. My KR made me very proud tonight.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI USA E-mail me at [email protected] Visit my NEW KR-2S CorvAIRCRAFT web site at www.flykr2s.com
