Noted in one of the KR Newsletters while building mine (1981-3) that the last 2 inches of the cg range were not useable. I was aware of the danger of aft cg/spin risk. Before flying mine I devised a cradle that piveted at the design cg center: aft face of the center spar. Found that I could balance my KR by sitting up straight: lean ahead and it would tip down, lean back and it would lilt tail down, this without any fuel in the tanks (worst case, like outta fuel!). Figured that my weight and balance calulations were right on. I added approximately 25% more area to the tail feathers during construction so I may have more 'tail authority' than a KR2 built exactly to plans.
In exploring the flight envelope I found that mine would not spin, just a steep nose down spirel. Did beautiful wing overs, plus one tail slide (not to be repeated!). Axel spins to the left. Shallow dive full throttle to above 160mph indicated, shallow climb to slightly above the horizon, full left aileron with slight up elevator. Attemps to spin to the right always resulted in a steep inverted dive: power off, roll upright, and shallow recovery return to horizontal flight, power back on. All loose items were removed from the cockpit before any of the above were attempted. Limit my current flying to 'normal' attitudes now. In twenty eight years and 1,448.2 hours of flying, my KR2 its proven to be a safe and enjoyable magic carpet.
