Happy New Year to one and all. Another year complete and another year of building challenges to look forward to. As those of you who read this blog will no doubt be aware, I have not updated the site for quite some time. Sadly I did not achieve much on the build front over November or December but I have started off the New Year with a hiss and a roar so fingers crossed for a more productive year in 2010.

One thing that did occur in November was that my wife and I flew down to Christchurch for the weekend of the 21st-22nd. While there I got out to Sumner and caught up with Robin Macdonald for a few hours to talk KR's and aeroplane building in general. Robin is progressing well with his rebuild and he's given me a number of ideas and thoughts on how to do things. Photo's from my visit can be found here.

The weekend away was however somewhat tinged with sadness for me as on the Thursday before we left I heard my close friend of many years, Andy Forster, had been killed in a work accident earlier in the day. Andy was a NZ Air Force Senior NCO working as an EOD Operator and was killed while marking an unexploded artillery shell for later disposal. Andy and I (mis)spent much of our youth together and our friendship had continued over the years as our families grew. Andy was very professional in his job and loved what he was doing. The exact reason why the round detonated is unclear but dealing with unexploded and potentially unstable ordnance is inherently dangerous and Andy knew the risks. His loss still came as a great shock and I will be adding a page to my site to commemorate his life.

Build Progress Summary
November saw the completion of the sanding and sealing of the boat skin. I also roughed out and did the final shaping of the three Horizontal Stabiliser spars and glued the NACA 63009 rib templates to ply ready for cutting. Also the parts for my Dr Dean hinges for the HS arrived. I ordered these through Steve Noad at Aircraft Logistics in Christchurch. Steve had nearly all the parts required in stock and gave me prompt and helpful service.

December saw me trying a number of methods to find a simple, accurate way of cutting out the rib templates. After a number of false starts I finally bit the bullet and purchased an electric scroll saw which has made the whole process a lot simpler. I kinda wished I had purchased one of these tools before now as it has come in handy for cutting many other things other than just the templates.

January has so far seen the assembly of the spars and rib templates to form the basic skeleton of the Horizontal Stabliser and I am currently working through the creation of the gussets required to attach the templates to the spars as well as the fabrication of the aerodynamic balance horns. I had a bit of problem over the last week however in that a couple of batches of glue I had created did not appear to be hardening off as required and I had to spend some time testing why this occured.

The other major update I have has been the response I have received after sending out emails to all the KR owners in NZ who I contacted to get photo's of their aircraft. I have had a great response and have updated the Kiwi KR's page with the new images and details I have been given. Thank you to all those who sent me the photo's and updates.

I have also added a new page to the Miscellaneous tab which is a bit of a photo essay of a navex flight I did with a friend of mine back at the End of October. There are some (I think) neat shots of one of New Zealands offshore islands which also happens to be an active volcano. You can see it here.

Goals For The Coming Week
- Complete the fabrication of the aerodynamic balance horns on the HS.
- Cut and fit the gussets for the HS templates.

Recent News off the KRNet
There were some great links coming in off the KRNet just prior to Christmas. The following three caught my eye.

Images of the three KR's currently flying in Holland on Ted and Stef's site. http://www.masttotaalconcept.nl/kr2

Gunar Olsen from Norway has created some awesome CAD renderings on his site. http://www.go-design.no/images.html

A great youtube video of Corvair powered KR's and Sonex's at Corvair College #16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK23b-BWptE
(Make sure you turn the sound up for this one.)