Plane Hacker

Wow! Take a bow for Mark Langford. He has spent over 12 years building his own air plane (KR2S derivative), and has logged 625 hours of flying time on it.

Here is what he has to say on his website:

Since I've finished my plane, I've undergone a bit of a transformation from crazy airplane builder to real pilot and aircraft owner. Last year I put over 45,000 miles on my airplane (that's twice around the earth), yet my car only saw 6000 miles. I now use the airplane as my personal time machine...turning long, monotonous trips into a pure pleasure, both going and returning. I can fly my plane and get somewhere at least 3.5x faster than driving, and I'm not a time waster when it comes to driving either! My airplane typically gets about 38 miles per gallon at my usual "economy cruise speed" of 142 mph , far better than my Volkswagen GTI or my wifes's Audi A4. If conserving fuel is not a problem, I'll do 160 mph at 32 mpg at 9500'or 10,500'. I burn 93 octane auto fuel (same as the cars), so clearly flying is cheaper than driving, and I don't have to stop and buy lunch!

Mark has shared most of his modifications on his personal website, but more importantly he has helped build up a community and wealth of information being the administrator of the site krnet.org. The site acts as a forum for more than 650 builders—those who have flying aircraft, those who have existing airframes they’re interested in modifying, and those who are just starting out. It’s a place where they can share all their information and learnings about building and modifying these particular type of aircrafts.

Interestingly, he constantly evaluates performance of his plane using his Engine Information System (EIS) that feeds constant stream of data to his laptop every second. (That reminds me, officially i am an Instrumentation & Control engineer :-))

Hats off for your skill and dedication, Mark. You are an inspiration.