On Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 05:52:30 AM PDT, Flesner via KRnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 4/1/2023 8:53 PM, costewart23 via KRnet wrote:
> How much does the KR fuselage need to flex, if any?!?!?
>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The KR design is 50+ years old . . ."
Keep in mind too that Ken Rand was a short guy. I recently came across an
audio file of him giving a talk at Oshkosh, answering questions, and within the
body of the talk is his description of how he came to design the KR. An avid
modeler and engineer at McDonnel Douglas (along with Stu Robinson), he was
already in the business of building planes. I assume they were RC . . . I
can't imagine him playing with U-control for more than a few minutes . . . but
that's what we did in the Fifties.
Ken built the KR by increasing his models in size and probably in addition of
materials appropriate to larger and larger aircraft (models). At some point he
realized he could make one large enough for him to sit in and fly and the rest
is history. It's a shame he didn't live longer as he would be far more widely
known for pioneering wood/foam/fiberglass construction. I imagine many of the
RC model builders of the era were using the same construction methods but Ken
and Stu were the only ones to pursue it to a working prototype. He initially
got it to just big enough for him. Five feet five inches or therabouts so
naturally the bias was going to be on adapting the design to fit his form.
This innate size issue stimulated an endless number of improvements, the main
one being of size. All of them have in common the desire to increase size and
capability. I don't remember fuselage flexing as ever being something to
wonder about but it's certainly a factor that involves aerodynamics and control
linkages, etc.
MikeKSEE
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