Trickel's main business was High Tech Composites, a company that produced many airframe components under sub-contract for kit aircraft such as the Lancair 235, Lancair 320 and Lancair IV. Trickel originally drew a new aircraft as a set of three-views for a customer in Australia who was looking for a new, conventional aircraft concept. The customer liked the design, but never paid for the drawings, so Trickel brought them home and completed the design work himself. Eventually the new design became the KIS TR-1.
The KIS TR-1 features a cantilever low-wing, a two-seats-in-side-by-side configuration enclosed cockpit accessed via gull-wing doors, fixed tricycle landing gear or optionally conventional landing gear with wheel pants and a single engine in tractor configuration.
The aircraft is made from composites. Its 231NaN1 span rectangular wing employs a NACA 63-215 airfoil, mounts flaps and has a wing area of 88square feet. The acceptable power range is 80to and the standard engines used are the 1250NaN0 Continental O-240, the 1080NaN0 Lycoming O-235-C1B or the 800NaN0 Limbach L2000 powerplant.[2]
The KIS TR-1 has a typical empty weight of 750lb and a gross weight of 1300lb, giving a useful load of 550lb. With full fuel of the payload for the pilot, passenger and baggage is 430lb.
The standard day, sea level, no wind, take off with a 1250NaN0 engine is 6000NaN0 and the landing roll is 12000NaN0.
The manufacturer estimated the construction time from the supplied kit as 1000 hours.