KRNetHeads, I'm guessing that the main problem with this year's forums was the main speaker for all the forums...he showed up unprepared, and pretty much gave the same talk he gives every year. That would be me. The exception was Steve Bennett's excellent discussion and demonstration of why the "POSa-like" gravity feed carbs are a compromise. Other than that bright star, it was me with nothing much to say, just taking questions from those who had something in particular they needed help with or wanted an opinion on. Just like the Airventure KR Builders and Pilots forum I give every year, I didn't take the time to plan my presentation or work up a PowerPoint.
I haven't been posting much lately either. There's a simple reason for that, and it's that I've been slammed at work for almost three years now, and probably will be for another two or three years. I have four dead airplanes, and two engines spread all over my basement. My priorities are elsewhere. But I'm just whining now. I'm fine with some new blood taking over and doing hands-on demonstrations and presentations on new subjects. I look forward to sitting in the audience and learning something new next year. Let the volunteer force step forward. I'm glad this subject has come to light, knowing that Larry will have plenty of volunteers for next year. I'm not being sarcastic here, it really will be good to see others step up and do things. Maybe somebody will video these things and we can put them on www.KRnet.org for those who couldn't make it. In what little spare time I've had in the last few months, I've been meaning to do something to bring this list back to the level of technical discussions that we've been known for over the years. My feeble attempts at this in the past have been to trot out the List Info and Rules (the link is at the bottom of every email) which includes, "Try to write "keeper" posts if you're the expert on something. Cover the whole issue, answer all possible questions, address both sides of an issue, and make it a post that others will want to save or print out and keep. Those are the gems that we all search for on KRNet." I used to try to do that stuff. It's in the archives, but that exercise is now "left to the reader" [sorry, I know that's a copout, but that's the way it is]. We even tried to create an FAQ collection of those written by me and others and put them on KRnet, but it quickly fizzled out with only a few entries. If somebody wants to revive that effort, you are hereby encouraged to organize and execute it. I'll provide disk space and a link from www.KRnet.org. I've had several folks unsubscribe in the last few months, and when they left they emailed me that they were hoping to find lots of technical information on KRs and KR engines, but what they've found instead is a bunch of old friends carrying on conversations. For sure, a lot of superfluous conversations carried on between friends should have conducted privately, instead of to 850 other subscribers. I'll be the first to admit that once my plane was finished, and I would rather spend my time flying than typing emails. For me, flyin events have become more a matter of meeting up with KR builder friends and exchanging flying experiences, rather than how to build the plane (although upgrading is always a topic). Don't forget, what has now become the "old guard" KR flyers were once builders, and we exchanged ideas and methods back when we were building our planes, and are now much tighter because of it. I think there's room for both types of discussions, but what's been lacking is those "gem" posts that people want to print out and add to their builder's notebook for a plan of action when they get to that point of construction...that sort of thing. I plan to do one of those on the differences between KR2s and Kris, once I get some more time on N891JF. If nothing else, I encourage folks who have technical questions to simply ask them. You'll get answers. If it's a simple question, you might get a simple answer or a link to where you can find more, but if it's specific to KR building, there's plenty of skilled and experienced advice available here. Perhaps the volunteers will start taking notes on what to cover for next year's Gathering... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
