I am sorry but I have to respectfully disagree with the theories presented that are saying if you get it up go fly, meaning the tail. Honestly gentlemen, and I do not mean this in a hurtful way, but if you are that precarious on the main wheels during transition, then you need ALOT more practice with that aircraft because you don't have sufficient skill to fly it. I fail to understand why so many inexperienced pilots with the KR are not paying close attention to someone who has over 1000 hours and is flying his KR now successfully, who did just that. Just taxiing around for 1/2 an hour is just long enough to give one a false sense of security in the ease of ground handling. There is NO difference between high speed taxiing down the runway, and wheel landing in a cross wind. Both require proficiency of the aircraft. It is much better to get it in a controlled way at slower speeds closer to stopping, and have a minor ground loop, than to have the same lack of proficiency, and attempt a cross wind landing, or have a normal landing get away form you and roll the plane over, possibly getting injured/maybe destroying your plane. Larry Flesner approached every aspect of his test program so far with very deliberate purpose and caution of a seasoned pilot. Although I have more hours than Larry, I find myself learning a great deal from his experience, and his approach to testing his KR. I too intend on doing significant ground handling testing, to the point of becoming almost bored with the way the KR handles on the ground so that there are no surprises during transition whatever the winds are. It is tragic that 20% of our flying is takeoffs and landings, yet we have nearly 90% of our accidents and incidents during this phase of flight. As a CFI a make at least half of the training time spent with a student devoted to takeoffs and landings, no matter what the rating they are attempting to acquire. What about finding out if your wheel alignment was correct, just as one example. It would be much better to find out it is off, by gently lifting the tail, finding the plane trying to consistently turn to one side and then, begin investigating the cause. If one were to go ahead with the takeoff and attribute this to P-factor and torque, he might have a very swift and catastrophic end to his first flight. I intend to devote a total of 10 hours of time to ground handling proficiency as part of my flight testing program. If you are not proficient in wheel landing, or tail up taxiing, then this is where you need to devote some time becoming proficient, not flying straight level, and calling yourself a KR driver. From a safety standpoint there should never be any phase of any flight that relies on luck, or is in question. If that's the case it is time to land and get help. And thank you Larry for the great example.
Colin & Bev Rainey KR2(td) N96TA Sanford, FL crain...@cfl.rr.com or crbrn9...@hotmail.com http://kr-builder.org/Colin/index.html
