My vote is no on the BRS, thank you. I rode my mountain bike for two hours this afternoon on the side of a mountain, and could have easily broken something (like I did my collarbone a few years back), but I'm not about to wear hockey padding when I bike. I DO wear a helmet and gloves, because I don't cherish the thought of being a vegetable that my family has to take care of. I don't carefully pick my way down the side of the mountain....I go as fast as I think I can possibly get away with! I was thinking about why it is that I like to do stuff like that, and arrived at the conclusion that I enjoy a good "death defying challenge".
When I get back to the bottom of the mountain, and have successfully dodged thousands of sharp boulders, loose rocks, and tree stumps and limbs, I feel a small measure of pride that I cheated injury or death once again. I get the same buzz from landing my plane....I cheated it again! Folks have their own levels of comfort. Some fly spam cans, others experimentals, others with BRS chutes, some in ultralights or hang gliders, and some prefer to sit on their couches and watch TV instead of taking any kind of risk at all. I can't live that way. My willingness to take a risk is one reason why I had the audacity (and you thought it was confidence) to make as many changes as I did to my airplane. It has paid off so far, with the bottom line being some small measure of improvement to the KR design. More flight testing may be dangerous, but I get that buzz with it, so it'll be worth it. What's flying all about anyway? For me it's that buzz (and yes, I'm still juiced up after that dead-stick landing). If I die tomorrow, my tombstone will probably read something like "he died doing what he liked to do", and that'll be good enough for me. Just about everybody I know that's crashed a KR has promptly started repairing it or building another one. They've gotta have that fix. Ken Rand didn't sit on his couch and watch TV either, and we are all a little happier because of it. It's a personal choice, but don't give me a hard time for going without a BRS. I don't have a spare engine mounted on the plane either. We all have our levels of comfort. Flying is not an inherently safe hobby. I have a "living will" that basically says "if I get to the point that I can't pour myself a beer and drink it, unplug me! If my time is up, my time is up. At least I didn't die in front of my TV... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net --------------------------------------------------------------
