Pete Gauthier of Woodburn, Oregon watched as his brother Chuck, retired Air Guard Jet jock (F100, F4 and a bunch of other stuff) flew N464DG on its 5th flight Friday afternoon.
Attendees of the 2015 KR Gathering at McMinnville, Oregon may remember seeing Pete's airplane, the KR2 PeterBuilt! Before that event, another test pilot made the first 2 flights. Since then Pete & Chuck have been working on it on & off making further changes to it including redesigning the canopy to increase visibility and reworking the fuel, carb and intake for more reliable power. Even though Chuck has his ATP, he is a low-time KR pilot and is still getting used to the stick sensitivity, especially in pitch. His airplane is a Sonex with a Corvair. I got to see the flight. When I finally got the correct frequency on the hand held radio, I listened in to Chuck's callouts of performance numbers during the test flight. They're really good! All the engine instruments remained in the green. Prior flights calibrated the ASI but this flight found the VSI is way off. Chuck reported approach to stall series with 45 mph indicated as mushing down and no hard stall break. He ran the full approach to stall series with no flaps and then all 3 flap settings with consistent results. Chuck set an approach reference speed of 60 mph indicated and drove the airplane down final like it was on rails. After clearing the end of the runway, power came to complete idle, speed bled off and a very nice touch down resulted. During the post-flight briefing Chuck said the engine still isn't making enough static RPMs so the climb out was very slow. Chuck only got 2700 RPM during the flight but did his testing at a safe 4000' MSL, 3800' AGL. He also says there is a huge difference in stick feel between the Sonex and Pete's KR2. There might be an issue where the airplane/ pilot combo are towards the aft CG and another W&B will help sort that out. You can see all the photos here: http://www.bouyea.net/members/PeteGauthier and be sure to click the link at the very top to see the flight report photos Where do they go from here? Good question! Pete might benefit from a little encouragement. If you have suggestions, please post! We'd all hate to see such a nice airplane become a hangar queen. John Bouyea N133RM KR-2S - imported, fixed & flying www.bouyea.net/cur_proj/N133RM OR81/ Hillsboro, OR _______________________________________________ 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
