Rebuilding my KR-2

480 Lbs. is the design empty weight for the KR-2 but most come in about 540.
Go to http://www.fly-kr.com the official web site of R&R or
http://www.krnet.org the builders group.
"Forrest" wrote in message
...
The following is an email I sent to Jim Weir of KitPlanes Magazine.



Jim requested that I post my message to this newsgroup and and open these
issues up for discussion. I'm the new guy to aviation.



Your Areo 'Lectrics column is like a much needed refresher course in
electronics for me. And of all of the magazines that find their way into
my
house the only column I always make it a point to read is yours. Thank
you.

I have about 20 hours on my student log book and recently bought a KR2
from my local chapter of EAA. It is in kind of rough shape an has only
basic instrumentation - from left to right as follows; oil temp., VSI,
ASI,
oil pressure, altitude, RPM, magnetic compass, turn coordinator. There is
no electrical system and no lights anywhere. I'm sanding five coats of
paint, primer, excess fiberglass, and unnecessary Bondo from the exterior.
The 100hp Continental engine has about 25 hrs. on a complete rebuild. It
seemed to be a good buy at two pecks of saved loose pocket change. By the
way I'll be christening the craft "Two Pecks".

Getting to the point, I've been reading and down loading from your
home
pages on the web since flying is brand new to me. The idea is to be able
to
afford the time to go see my Mom more regularly while she is still around.
She lives 800 miles from me and the rest of my family doesn't live any
closer. So, I want my plane to be able to make the trip with as many
safety
features as possible (pilot included, of course). And I want the good
stuff
at the "Weir Twofer $pecial." The thing is that you have such an
excellent
variety of things one can do that I have gotten a bit overwhelmed. I
don't
know what to do first or which variation to put my energy into.

Here are a few of the things I have in mind for Two Pecks. LED nav.
lights with appropriate flashers, one electronic ignition and one mag.,
electric start, electronic fuel gauges, nav. radio (was that little 2 1\2"
instrument hole plugger really a radio?! I couldn't find the article that
said where to get one), transponder, CHT, EGT, OAT, carb air temp.,
alternator voltage, GPS, LED dash lights, LED map light, a good two place
head set jacks, the right size battery arrangement, a good circuit breaker
set (I like that auto reset gizmo with the cut out switches), Oh! and that
battery charger with temperature compensation looks pretty nifty too. Did
I
forget anything?

What comes to mind now is that I feel like I'm writing my wish list to
Santa Clause. What would really be great is if you happen to have a book
that spells these things out step by step with a direct purchase parts
catalog or a mail order list. Granted, your parts list is pretty
thorough.

I'm sure that you have a conceptual understanding of limited
availability on time, yet here I am writing to you with a thesis on my
latest disbursal. I guess I'll get all of this worked out in due time.
If
you are so inclined as to respond with what to do or not do next, or maybe
which projects to pick or leave, I would be ever grateful.

Incidentally, will the Palm Pilot programs for GPS nav. aids etc. work
on my "Visor" palm computer?

I think I'll try to figure out how to do the navigation lights next
since that will effect the body work and paint job.



Thank you for your time,

Forrest

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:55:25 -0500, "James R. Freeman"
wrote:

480 Lbs. is the design empty weight for the KR-2 but most come in about 540.
Go to http://www.fly-kr.com the official web site of R&R or
http://www.krnet.org the builders group.

typical problems we are aware of in australia
they come out over empty weight and quite often have an aft cg
problem.

the fuselage around the cockpit is structurally sound though. alan
decked his at 80knots after the canopy opened in flight (side hinged)
the aircraft was totalled but nothing penetrated the cockpit. he got
out shaken but unhurt and has almost completed the rebuild.

one other problem is the long AN3 bolts attaching the alloy casting
gear legs to the torsion beam. these are not strong enough. with
engineering assistance the local guy has used high strength NAS bolts
of about AN4 diameter. in failure the nuts on the AN3's just pull
straight off the bolts taking the threads with them.

Forrest
pay attention to empty weight. it is important.
what you find in overweight aircraft is that the airspeed of lowest
drag increases over what it could be.
this means that on approach to landing you have to keep the speed up
or the induced drag rises quickly and as it does the sink rate
increases.
a heavily loaded Wittman Tailwind for example will approach at 70
knots quite happily but will develop quite alarming sink rates below
60 knots unless you have power on. it stalls at 47 knots in landing
configuration.
in a gusting 20 knot crosswind it becomes a really attention grabbing
exercise to approach at 70 knots round out and wash off the excess
airspeed down to landing speed, while juggling the drift, without
whanging it on so hard that you bend something ...or end up in yet
another go around.
overweight takes all the fun out of flying I can tell you.
you can only correct the problem by not building it in.
Stealth Pilot
Australia

"Stealth Pilot" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:55:25 -0500, "James R. Freeman"
wrote:

480 Lbs. is the design empty weight for the KR-2 but most come in about
540.
Go to http://www.fly-kr.com the official web site of R&R or
http://www.krnet.org the builders group.

typical problems we are aware of in australia
they come out over empty weight and quite often have an aft cg
problem.

the fuselage around the cockpit is structurally sound though. alan
decked his at 80knots after the canopy opened in flight (side hinged)
the aircraft was totalled but nothing penetrated the cockpit. he got
out shaken but unhurt and has almost completed the rebuild.

one other problem is the long AN3 bolts attaching the alloy casting
gear legs to the torsion beam. these are not strong enough. with
engineering assistance the local guy has used high strength NAS bolts
of about AN4 diameter. in failure the nuts on the AN3's just pull
straight off the bolts taking the threads with them.

Forrest
pay attention to empty weight. it is important.
what you find in overweight aircraft is that the airspeed of lowest
drag increases over what it could be.
this means that on approach to landing you have to keep the speed up
or the induced drag rises quickly and as it does the sink rate
increases.
a heavily loaded Wittman Tailwind for example will approach at 70
knots quite happily but will develop quite alarming sink rates below
60 knots unless you have power on. it stalls at 47 knots in landing
configuration.
in a gusting 20 knot crosswind it becomes a really attention grabbing
exercise to approach at 70 knots round out and wash off the excess
airspeed down to landing speed, while juggling the drift, without
whanging it on so hard that you bend something ...or end up in yet
another go around.
overweight takes all the fun out of flying I can tell you.
you can only correct the problem by not building it in.
Stealth Pilot
Australia



Hello Stealth Pilot,

I think it's pretty cool to be hearing from Australia. I was in port at
Gerldton (sp.?) W. Australia for a week when I was in the Navy. Some nice
folks took me in for a couple of days and we took in some local sights
(~200k radius) cruising about in their ute. One day I hope to visit there
again.

I was told that my KR-2 has had the wings and tail extended. However, I
have not confirmed that yet. The logs are a lot sketchy and much of the
paperwork seems to be missing. The previous owner is reportedly dead.
Reportedly death not attributable to flight related incident.

Your post attached here is very informative. Big John warned I might be in
a little deep with this machine as a low time pilot. Maybe being a low
time -student- pilot will help matters a bit? :-0 The complications are no
big bother to me though. I like to have creative endeavors to occupy my
mind with. And my flight instructor was good enough to have mixed my
breakfast up a bit a couple of times to fasten the concept that getting
airborne was not to be taken lightly. Anyway, I'll post some dimensions
sometime in the next couple of days and keep plugging away at this project.
I'm currently in what I like to think of as the cost of my education. It
has become apparent to me that a new project will be in order once this one
is finished. I'm getting the idea that some of the bells and whistles might
have to wait until then. Maybe.

By the way, I'm not terribly happy with the way the landing gear was bolted,
though it must have been safe enough to put a bunch of hours on the plane.
And the canopy attachment (forward hinged) was becoming frayed. I'm trying
to figure out how to get it to slide forward instead. But ... well, we'll
see.

Thanks,
Forrest