This past Thursday, Brad Nichols, Dr. Hsu, and I traveled to our 2023 KR Gathering at Mt Vernon, IL. This was Brad's first time attending and Dr. Hsu and I had three other gatherings under our belts. My home port is KHQZ and sits under Bravo airspace in Dallas. The weather was calling for 200 ft. ceilings and visibility of less than 1/4 mile with embedded thunderstorms until Saturday evening. Even if I had flown off the 40 hours off of my KR... there was no way to secure a VFR departure clearance, so the decision to join my two KR buddies driving to KMVN was an easy one to make. Brad drove to KHQZ from Navasota (2.5 hrs) and Dr. Hsu from the Johnson Space Center in Houston (3.5) hrs. While we waited, I gave Brad a tour of my now-finished KR and he asked a million questions and we talked about his project. It was in a way like a precursor to the upcoming gathering and the things we would see there. We arrived at Mount Vernon at 5 AM on Friday morning and almost froze to death in the 57-degree morning in Illinois. We had been living in Texas under 105 degrees days and 57 degrees felt like near Arctic conditions for us...We jumped back in the car and waited till the sun came up... During the meeting, we visited with pilots already flying their KRs and others who were still building... Brad in particular was able to actually look at and touch some of the airplanes on exhibit and talk to their builders/pilots. Dr. Hsu as always, mingled among the attendees and questioned everyone about topics that interest him the most. In general, I can attest to the fact that Brad walked away a much more confident builder. The exchange of ideas and information with the builders has given him the confidence to continue to move forward with his build. Brad and I talked ad nauseam about lessons learned and future plans for our airplanes. We missed flying up to KMVN this year, but God willing, we are fully committed to taking our steeds of wood and glass north to KMVN next year to be one of the pilots/builders showing off our work. That is a promise. Luis
-- KRnet mailing list KRnet@list.krnet.org https://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet
