This post isn't really about a flight home from the Gathering at Lee's Summit... it's about a drive home from there. KRNetter and KR owner/pilot John Bouyea being the quiet and unassuming person that he is, he'd probably never mention this as anything special, but he just drove close to 5000 miles from his home in Oregon to Norman Indiana on a long-distance errand, then to Lee's Summit for the Gathering and back to his home and down to mine and back- to recover a piece of aviation history that was going to be lost. As some of you who were at the Gathering already know, that piece of history is the prototype and only example of the Barnard M-19 Flying Squirrel ever to fly. The significance to the KR community is that the Flying Squirrel employs exactly the same composite construction techniques and VW engine power that were pioneered by Ken Rand when he designed the KR, and for the exact same reasons: durability, ease of construction, affordability, and versatility. Marvin Barnard (now deceased; died of a heart attack, not aviation related) claimed that he built his airplane, complete and flying, bit by bit with a lot of scrounging and for less than $3,500. He flew it to Oshkosh on several occasions, often went around barefoot since he was a country boy who lived that lifestyle, and constructed the airplane in his back yard using mostly hand tools. A humble man, innovative, a straight shooter.
Today John and I hung the wings and tail surfaces back on the airplane outside my hangar, smiled and took pictures, and I've attached a picture below. Not much kinship with the KR is apparent when you look at the strut-braced high-wing Squirrel with its boxy lines, but beneath the latex-house-painted wet-layup fiberglass skins is the same type of wood trussed frame with extruded foam panel infill, and the wings have wood spars and foam ribs with glassed foam skins. It's a construction method that worked for Ken, it worked for Marvin, it's worked for KR builders for years and years, and it's working for John and I as we build our own Flying Squirrels. I've often said that my Squirrel is a "KR construction trainer" so I could get familiar with composite construction techniques on something simple before diving into a KR project, and maybe that will be the case. Oscar Zuniga Medford, OR [cid:9c6ef29a-9fd8-485f-af3c-689c5838648f]
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