gschuld
Well-Known Member
Hello everyone,
I have been interested in building an airplane since I was a kid. I have spent nearly 10 years building and restoring custom wooden boats. It's becoming clear to me that all my time spent developing skills with woodworking, laminating, fiberglassing, vacuum bagging, cold molding, custom metal hardware design and fabrication, carbon fiber over foam construction, etc. while boatbuilding was simply an excuse to get paid to learn the skills(and collect the tools) I would need to build my own airplane:grin:! I have been out of the boat building business for a number of years now persuing ...well, greed mostly! Luckily, I am now in a fairly good position to build. I now have a new house nearly finished with a seperate insulated and heated/cooled 950sq ft. dedicated shop with tools ranging from a 3 phase bandsaw to a tig welder. I am kind of running out of excuses at this point:lick:.
I am leaning heavily toward a KR-2s powered by either a corvair or an 0-200. The idea of building a metal airplane, as much as I respect them, does not appeal to me at all on a personal level. I am a wood and glass kind of guy. Like all things, there are some aspects of the design that I find less than ideal. Many KR-2s builders have apparently built or modified their planes to "improve the breed". For the most part, the basic plane seems to be evolving well, even though Ken Rand would probably look at the most modern versions of his simple little plane as horrendously heavy and overburdoned with creature comforts
ara:. Creating a KR-2s with clean attractive overall lines seems to be a bit of a challenge compared some other designs, but I have seen a few that give me faith that a plane could be built that I would be happy with. Anyway, I have enjoyed poking around this site and I have been impressed with the helpful and intelligent people around here. I may end up relying on some of you to keep me on the straight and narrow. I tend to over think, over design, and over complicate whenever possible, it's a weakness:ermm:!
George
I have been interested in building an airplane since I was a kid. I have spent nearly 10 years building and restoring custom wooden boats. It's becoming clear to me that all my time spent developing skills with woodworking, laminating, fiberglassing, vacuum bagging, cold molding, custom metal hardware design and fabrication, carbon fiber over foam construction, etc. while boatbuilding was simply an excuse to get paid to learn the skills(and collect the tools) I would need to build my own airplane:grin:! I have been out of the boat building business for a number of years now persuing ...well, greed mostly! Luckily, I am now in a fairly good position to build. I now have a new house nearly finished with a seperate insulated and heated/cooled 950sq ft. dedicated shop with tools ranging from a 3 phase bandsaw to a tig welder. I am kind of running out of excuses at this point:lick:.
I am leaning heavily toward a KR-2s powered by either a corvair or an 0-200. The idea of building a metal airplane, as much as I respect them, does not appeal to me at all on a personal level. I am a wood and glass kind of guy. Like all things, there are some aspects of the design that I find less than ideal. Many KR-2s builders have apparently built or modified their planes to "improve the breed". For the most part, the basic plane seems to be evolving well, even though Ken Rand would probably look at the most modern versions of his simple little plane as horrendously heavy and overburdoned with creature comforts
ara:. Creating a KR-2s with clean attractive overall lines seems to be a bit of a challenge compared some other designs, but I have seen a few that give me faith that a plane could be built that I would be happy with. Anyway, I have enjoyed poking around this site and I have been impressed with the helpful and intelligent people around here. I may end up relying on some of you to keep me on the straight and narrow. I tend to over think, over design, and over complicate whenever possible, it's a weakness:ermm:! George
