1999 at the KR Gathering at Lake Barkley, KY was my first Gathering and was when I first met Marty. His love of the KR and his uncanny ability to fly that plane was my inspiration to build my KR. I was already intrigued with the design but watching Marty perform at Lake Barkley sealed the deal for me. Two awesome things I remember from that Gathering was when Marty did a toilet paper drop and maneuvered wildly to see how many times he could cut the paper before he had to pull up for lack of altitude. There is a photo of about twenty of us all looking up to watch him with our hands up in the air blocking the sun so we could see him. It is on this link close to the bottom. http://www.krnet.org/barkley1999/ Someone named the photo “Hail to the new wing” but we were actually watching Marty cut the toilet paper. I also remember watching Marty do a barrel roll on take off as he was climbing out. What a great inspiration he was. This was one of the best Gatherings I remember. Then after seven years of building I was close to flying but had not been on a KR flight yet. Seeing how I am not petite in stature, folks were leery to take me up. But then it happened at MT Vernon 2004. Marty said “I’ll take you up”! Marty is a tall fellow and you should have seed the two of us in his KR. I thought to myself there was no way this little plane was going to get off the ground with the two of us in there. Well, it did and what a ride it was. After allowing me to control the plane for a while Marty said we are going in for a high speed pass. He dove that little plane toward the approach end at an angle I will never forget. As he began to level off I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets from the G-force. I remember asking my maker above to please do not let the wings fold up on us. Just as we leveled out 20 or so feet above the runway Marty pointed at the airspeed and is was just shy of 200. I was freaking out thinking what was waiting on me with my own KR almost ready for flight. Six months later I made my first flight. Marty, we will never forget. Thanks for the memories. God speed.
Mark Jones Oldsmar, FL E-mail: flyk...@gmail.com Web: www.flykr2s.com _______________________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at https://www.mail-archive.com/krnet@list.krnet.org/. Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. see http://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet_list.krnet.org to change options. To UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@list.krnet.org
