Puneet Varma (Editor)

Rand Robinson KR 1

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Top speed
  
322 km/h

Engine type
  
Air-cooled engine

Rand Robinson KR-1 wwwsmallloadsdeliveredcomAirplane20picsKR201

Manufacturers
  
Rand Robinson Engineering, nVAero

The Rand Robinson KR-1 is a single-seat, single-engine sport aircraft designed in the United States in the early 1970s and marketed for homebuilding. A two-seat version is marketed as the KR-2. It is a low-wing cantilever monoplane of conventional design with an enclosed cockpit and tailwheel undercarriage. As originally designed, the main undercarriage units of the KR-1 and basic KR-2 were manually retractable, folding backwards into the wings, while the KR-2T tandem-seat version had fixed undercarriage. However, some builders choose fixed tailwheel or even fixed tricycle undercarriage for KR-1s and KR-2s.

Contents

Kits for the KR-1, KR-2 and KR-2S are supplied by nVAero of Mission Viejo, California, United States.

Design and development

The KR-1's wings have a two-spar construction; the front spar of spruce, and the rear spar from spruce and plywood. The wing ribs are formed from polyurethane foam, and the space around them filled with the same material before the entire wing structure is covered with fabric impregnated with epoxy resin. The fuselage is built around a wooden framework, the lower part skinned in plywood and the upper part built up of polystyrene foam covered in epoxy-coated fabric. KR-1 builders have the choice of three different upper fuselage configurations: the "fastback" with a turtledeck behind the cockpit, the "pursuit" with a fighter-style bubble canopy, and the "sportsman" with an open cockpit and a small fairing behind it for rollover protection.

The design has proved popular, with 6,000 sets of KR-1 plans and 4,500 sets of KR-2 plans sold by 1979. From these, over 200 KR-1s and 350 KR-2s were flying by 1987. Plans and kits were still available in 2011.

Variants

  • KR-1 - original, single-seat version
  • KR-2 - two-seat, side-by-side version, 1900 completed by 2011.
  • KR-2S - stretched version of the KR-2 made with composite sandwich construction, using the supercritical AS5045 airfoil. Standard engines include the 85 hp (63 kW) Jabiru 2200, 120 hp (89 kW) Jabiru 3300 and the 76 to 100 hp (57 to 75 kW) Volkswagen air-cooled engine. 100 completed and flown by 2011.
  • KR-2T - tandem version of the KR-2

    • Aircraft on display

  • EAA AirVenture Museum
  • Queensland Air Museum KR-2 VH-XXS

    • Specifications (typical KR-2)

    General characteristics

  • Crew: one
  • Capacity: one passenger
  • Length: 14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
  • Wingspan: 20 ft 8 in (6.30 m)
  • Height: 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m)
  • Wing area: 80 ft2 (7.4 m2)
  • Empty weight: 440 lb (200 kg)
  • Gross weight: 800 lb (360 kg)
  • Powerplant: 1 × Volkswagen air-cooled engine, 90 hp (67 kW)

    • Performance

  • Maximum speed: 180 mph (290 km/h)
  • Service ceiling: 16,000 ft (4,900 m)
  • Rate of climb: 800 ft/min (4.1 m/s)

    • References

    Rand Robinson KR-1 Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA