Nice picture, Bob. I would've had one today, but it sunset was something of a non-event in north Alabama today. I did get some flying in today though...something like 12 hours of it, but only 1.5 was KR time. I left the farm house in England at 5AM this morning, and got home at 4PM...and was flying the KR by 5PM. I was a little worried that it might not start after sitting for 5 weeks. After all, my cordless phone, electric shaver, GTI, and everything else I own with a battery in it was totally dead, but the KR fired up instantly!
My wife said I should go practice landings before going to OSH, and I told her it was like riding a bike...it was going to take a lot longer than 5 weeks to make me forget. But I obliged, and takeoff was perfect, and the landings weren't bad either. The only surprise was when I came back to M38 and discovered corn growing where there's usually cotton. That means 5 feet less of vertical clearance at the end of the runway. That doesn't sound like much, but it translates into a good distance down the runway more than I'm used to. It felt like a big drop after I came over the top of the corn! Well, OK, I got to practice braking a little harder with the tail up, and still had plenty of room, but I like to get it down to taxi speed as soon as possible. It also means corn on the cob when I clean out the tailwheel this fall, rather than bolls of cotton and weeds! I was up at FYM doing touch and goes and some guy in an experimental joined the pattern, doing one of those huge patterns that ends in a long drawn out power-on final that seems to last forever if you're in a KR. I had to extend way downwind and then did a touch-and-go behind him. I did my usual crosswind at mid field or so, as he taxied around beneath me. He called on the radio and asked what I was flying, and I told him a Corvair powered KR2S. "How about landing and letting me check that out? Sure sounds good!". So I did. What amazed me was I was expecting an RV, but found a P-51 on the ground! Well as I got closer I realized it wasn't quite a full-sized Mustang, but it was one fine Loehle P-51. See http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/flights/p512.jpg and http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford/flights/p51.jpg , owned by Fayetteville TN's Larry Mullins. It's a nice "piece-o-kit"! He said he could only do 100 mph, so I told him a Corvair would sound right at home on that Mustang, but it turns out that 100mph is Vne on the Loehle Mustang. Seeing his plane and comparing it to mine, I should be ashamed to park mine on the field at OSH or SNF...it's really rough and looks like some hack just threw it together. Well I guess the truth hurts, and I just don't have time to make it look any better at the moment, so I'll have to accept the fact that flying a rough plane beats driving anytime. But seeing Larry's P-51 make me wish I'd have found the time to clean it up a bit and throw some paint on it... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
