I grew up on the Jedi Knight series and I'm a big fan of Kyle Katarn so I'm pretty committed to making him work. I think the best combo with him is his interaction with Jake Farrell, where Jake gets a focus at the start of combat, then follows it with a boost and barrel roll to guarantee himself the last maneuver, even when your opponent has PS10/11 ships or you have initiative.

I find Kyle is best being built as cheaply as possible while still contributing, as putting too many points on him makes him too much of a target. I also found that Jake really needs Proton Rockets to pull his weight - with Chardaan, he simply doesn't put out enough damage. Starting from this point, I made a few squads.

Kyle Katarn + Recon Specialist + Twin Laser Turret (30)

Jake Farrell + A-Wing Test Pilot + Veteran Instincts + Push the Limit + Proton Rockets + Autothrusters (33)

Keyan Farlander + Veteran Instincts + Advanced Sensors + B-Wing/E2 + Jan Ors (36)

With this squad, Keyan + Jan helps "tank" for Kyle, being a more enticing target with his one agility. Jan Ors lets Kyle and Keyan take evade tokens and gives Jake more flexibility with his action choice (for example, you can give him a focus action to get an evade token while retaining the Boost + Roll followup). The B-Wing's dial in my view gives Keyan enough options to keep a stress on him without needing an EPT to help with that. He does pretty well staying in the fight with his red Banks, Turns, K-Turn and straight. Kyle tries to draw a slow, wide circle around the firefight while firing potshots with his TLT.

Kyle Katarn + Recon Specialist + Twin Laser Turret (30)

Jake Farrell + A-Wing Test Pilot + Veteran Instincts + Push the Limit + Proton Rockets + Autothrusters (33)

Ello Asty + Veteran Instincts + R2-D2 + Autothrusters (37)

I've seen people with a variation of this list that used Poe instead of Ello, synergizing Poe's ability with Kyle's. I didn't like those squads because it makes maneuvering harder with Poe and Jake at different PS and because I often found that I wanted to give Kyle's focus to Jake more than Poe, leading Poe to get into awkward situations where he Tallon Rolls and can't use his ability. This squad avoids that by giving Ello reliable recovery, the same PS as Jake, and the ability to Tallon roll and still take his action, whether a boost, focus or lock. In the unlikely scenario that Jake doesn't need Kyle's focus, Ello can still make good use of it (though not as much as Poe).

Without Keyan to attract fire, I'd like to try this list with a different Kyle build of Autoblaster Turret + Moldy Crow + Chewbacca for higher survivability, though I don't have the autoblaster turret card yet.

Any feedback or thoughts on the squads? Which one looks stronger?

Jake doesn't really need Kyle to be effective. So I wouldn't try too hard to keep him in range of Kyle. Jake's quite potent all by himself.

Also, with only 3 ships (one of which is Jake who really prefers being on the edge of the battle not getting any attention), I can't see your other two ships surviving well. Unless you can get the proton rockets off and finish an enemy ship quick. Either of your lists could work, but you might have an uphill battle against certain builds (especially ones that can deal lots of damage quick, like crack swarm or HLC IG88's and similar).

I am also a fan of the Kyle-Jake combo and have tried lists identical (and similar) to both of these. I especially like Keyan carrying Jan as the third ship for the same reasons you mentioned here.

One of my solutions to the low firepower on Jake is trading VI for Expose or PTL for Opportunist. Either way requires some upgrade shuffling, usually drop PRockets.

If you try the AutoTurret I'd like to hear how it does (I don't have one either) but I can definitely recommend Chewie copilot, makes a big difference. Add in Determination too if you can find the point for Kyle, it gets surprising mileage for me especially combined with Chewie.