2002 KR Gathering

Travel Itinerary

    Kansas City Airport (MCI) to SAC Museum

This was my first trip to this part of the US so I took the opportunity to visit the Strategic Air Command Museum while I was here.  The museum is first class with many interesting aircraft.  They also had a couple of past presidential limos.  

    SAC Museum to Red Oak Municipal Airport (RDK)   

Special Guest at this year's KR Gathering was Jeanette Rand 

A peek under the hood of Marty Roberts 0200 powered 230MPH KR2.  Marty was the winner of this year's people's choice award.  Marty is a workhorse flying his KR all day long giving rides to perspective builders and thrilling the crowd with his high speed flybys. 

N3000n Terry from Kansas arrived at the KR Gathering on Thursday.

Dave Mullins trailered his KR to the Gathering from New Hamshire.

N5570R Rich Shirley's Super fast KR1.   Rich is a tool and die maker by trade so many things are custom fabricated on his KR because it's faster and easier than finding, ordering, and waiting for parts.  Billet tail wheel bracket/fairing and billet valve covers are two examples.  Rich won Best Engine Installation at this year's KR Gathering as well as Longest Distance Flown, 1318 miles.

The following photos of Rich Shirley's KR1 were taken complements of Mark Langford.  I needed them to complete my understanding of how Rich built his baffles around the prop shaft.  My first attempt did not yield satisfactory results so I thought that I would copy the Best Engine Installation winner from the 2002 KR Gathering.

    This last picture complements of GPASC (swiped it from their web page).

N731SB is Ed Schuler's beautiful KR-360.  Ed's KR has an O-360 Lycoming and a 30 foot wing span with full IFR capability.  The airplane is streatched  approximately 50% in all aspects except fuselage length which was two feet over the stock KR2.  The entry doors are Glasair units.  Ed laid up a frame over the doors as a mold, to fit on to his KR.  His empty weight is 1200 and his gross is 2200.  He had an Aeronautical engineer work with him in stretching his KR.

Mike Gabezes TypeIV Rear Drive KR2 has just been re-engined from the 1835 he originally built it with.  The airplane flew quite well in cool weather with the 1835 and would cruise at 150 MPH.  The hot weather climb performance was very marginal so Mike decided it was unsafe with the smaller engine.  It should be flying again in about a month.  Mike and his wife Terry were the hosts of this year's KR Gathering.

N1213W  Won best KR at this year's KR Gathering.  It was originally built with a C-85 that ran well for 400 hours until it hit it's TBO.  The airplane was re-engined with an 0-200 using C-85 pistons resulting in a 110 horsepower engine.

The weather Finally let Jim Faughn get out of Saint Louis and he arrived Friday afternoon.   Jim's airplane won best interior at this year's KR Gathering.

The weather finally let two more KRs through from Canada.  They arrived late Saturday afternoon just before the KR Dinner.  I will get some pictures today of their airplanes.

Owen McPherson's KR2 is shown in the foreground at the gas pumps. 

The second KR from Canada was Chris Gardner's KR2-S.  Chris had NACA ducts on the side of his cowling and I can't find the pictures I took of them.  The left one was for cabin cooling and the right one was for battery cooling.

    Red Oak Municipal Airport to Red Coach Inn

    Red Oak Municipal Airport (RDK) to Kansas City Airport (MCI)