Mike wrote: "Jim Morehead's has the right idea for a drag flap. It is large, goes down to almost 90ยบ, has a very nicely designed deployment lever, and worked beautifully. It really slowed the plane down with no fuss. I would copy Jim's design if I were building a KR with a belly drag flap."
Having 12 hours in this plane myself I agree that Jim's belly board design was/is excellent. It has three notches of flaps, but the last notch was not usable under most of the circumstances I flew the plane in. When installing and using a belly board, consider your ability to fly away at any setting you may have on it. I am not sure Jim's plane had a fly-away capability with one person in it at temperatures above 90 degrees (SL, VW engine). It did have fly-away capability with two people in it at those temperatures at the second notch of flaps, about 45 degrees as I recall. Two notches dropped the speed 10 MPH and made seeing the runway over the nose very easy No fly-away means the pilot's options are limited to landing on the given pass. I am not comfortable in this realm unless the landing is assured or it is critical to be on the ground on the first pass. Going from two notches to zero caused the plane to pitch downward noticeably, not uncontrollably but enough that it could be a problem if the pilot was trying to get speed brake off the plane in close proximity to the ground and was not paying attention to the nose. The plane was not tested at full speed brake but this effect would certainly have been magnified. Use caution, think everything through, and go for it... wisely. Jim's design was very well thought out and worth looking at, especially the handle design. IHS, Dave "Zipper" Goodman President, EAA-818
