Hi everyone, Another tip for those building their boat stage:
I extended my top longeron doublers all the way to the tail. This allowed me to layout and build the complete top boat section on a pressed wood template, including all of the cross braces and gussets. Once this was done, it was a simple matter of just gluing in the two side frames and hold in place with clamps. This saved me an enormous amount of time. After this, I squared everything and inserted the bottom cross braces and gussets. It worked very well for my project as my side frames are square and not tapered like the KR. I also widened my fuselage to 1.2 meters (47.24 inches) at the shoulders - most new light aircraft as of lately use this dimension and it does not affect their performance much. The longer fuselage will allow enough air flow over the rudder & elevator, so I foresee no problem. (I saw the one and only photo here on the net showing two flying occupants in a KR2 from above and that thoroughly convinced me. Sardines are more comfortable in their can. I once flew with our late Sakkie Hallgreen and couldn't fit without putting my arm around his shoulder! Also, my legs and feet were constantly in his way of control - definitely not for me) Imagine the luxury of such a wide cockpit. I'm aiming for an empty weight of 350 lbs and am totally convinced that this will be achievable as I save nearly 80-100 lbs on the engine installation alone! Then there's the spars (the much deeper spar can make for lighter spar caps), landing gear, canopy visor material, fuel tanks & instruments that will make up for the additional weight savings. And the biggest bonus of all is sitting just about on top of the cg. No more excessive trim problems caused by an ever shifting cg. with or without a passenger. Just my idea of what the excellent KR2 can be turned into. If only Ken was still with us... Happy building, Hennie hennie.vanroo...@kumbaresources.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail is confidential and is for the addressee only. Please refer to http://www.kumbaresources.com/email-disclaimer for important disclaimers. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
