12/31/2012. Remarks by Walter van Tilborg: "The KN-1 was a one-off motor glider designed and built by Ing. Wilhelm Knechtel of Biebertal, Germany. The KN-1 was preceded (ca. 1972) by a motorized version of a Lerche glider which was tested with various (external) engines.

The engine and propeller system of the KN-1 had been tested on a modified Schleicher Ka 4 Rhönlerche II glider and used a 45 hp VW 1500/1600 engine installed in the fuselage and driving pusher type propellers on outriggers. This proof of concept aircraft, registered as D-KABQ and sometimes referred to as Rhönlerche IIM, first flew in 1978, it was written off on August 16, 1981.

The KN-1 design was started in 1979, and construction the following year. Knechtel used an original fuselage design, to which were mated the tail surfaces of a Grob Twin-Astir glider, and Knechtel redesigned wings of a Grob G-103 Twin II Acro glider (this set of wings were built by Grob). The 80 hp Limbach SL1700 engine was installed in the nose and drove two separate propellers located on retractable outriggers above the trailing edge/fuselage joints.

Registered D-KNPF in March 1983, the KN-1 first flew on April 23, 1983. Its permit expired on May 5, 1995, and later it joined the collection of the museum in Merseburg."