KR GATHERING 2021—LEES SUMMIT AIRPORT

Approximately 30-40 KR enthusiast attended the 2021 KR Gathering in Lees Summit from September 10-12.  While attendance was down somewhat from previous gatherings, the crowd who attended had a great time renewing old friendships and looking at some great aircraft. 6 KR airplanes attended. The farthest distance flown was from Grand Junction Colorado by Roger Bulla in his KR2.  Jeff Scott (a former KR builder and pilot) arrived in his "aluminum KR on steroids" (RV6) and gave several introductory flights for current builders.  Several of the KR owners gave rides as well.

Several forums were conducted including fiber-glassing , weight & Balance, KR aircraft general information and an update by Allie and Brendan Palmer on their aircraft build, along with their work in Bible Translation. 

There was lots of great food during the event including a Saturday evening catered meal preceding the awards program. The 2022 KR Gathering will be held in Mount Vernon, Illinois the weekend after Labor Day. Chris Collins (the airport manager) will be the host and the Gathering will be conducted the same weekend as the Light Sport Expo.

All the "regular attendees" that couldn't make this years Gathering were sorely missed.

Awards;

Farthest distance - 6338Z Roger Bulla

Firewall forward - 6338Z Roger Bulla

Best Interior/Panel - 236MS Mike Sylvester

Best Paint - 863RK Robert Pesak

Best Judged KR - 738EM Roger Baalman

Peoples Choice - 738EM Roger Baalman

Much thanks to Rob Schmitt and the EAA Chapter crew for hosting this great event!

 John Bouyea stopped at the Gathering Friday during his XC trip to retrieve a one-of-a-kind prototype "Flying Squirrel" for Oscar Zuniga from Indiana to Oregon. He did a brief show & tell about the design and how it shares the same wood, foam, fiberglass and VW construction methods and concepts as the KR airplanes. The airplane was loaded up on a trailer and looked quite the worse for being stored in a literal chicken coop for the past 13 years. It will serve as the source to update drawings and the construction manual Oscar is working on while he and John build their own copies of the Squirrel. You can read all about it on Oscar's web site; http://flysquirrel.net

The trip continued westward, past the Columbia River in Oregon and was reassembled at Oscar's hangar at the Medford, Oregon airport.

Jeff Scott gave many rides to familarize attendees with control charactistics of the KR in his RV-6. Jeff has over 1400 hours in KRs and certainly helped teach slow flight concepts to luis, Feug and others. You can read about Jeff's projects and planes here; http://jeffsplanes.com

The Awards Dinner took place Saturday evening.