A good friend called me up and said that he bought a citabria and im paying for 1\2 of it.. good deal.

its a 66 with a freshly inspected wood wing and a fairly high-ish time engine. 66 mean's champ style shock gear and * * heel brakes.

I know its not a "backcountry" airplane per-say (no use-full load\flaps\hp\clown tires)
but I think I will have alot of fun in it. dirt\Grass strips and the occasional ultra-lightweight camping trip are required.

I have flown a 90hp champ and a 180hp super decathlon and loved both. I figure It should fly like the champ due to a little more weight, non symmetrical wing and 115hp. I loved flying the decathlon but have no great urges to do any "outside" maneuvers. The obligatory loop and rolls are mandatory.


trying to pick it up this weekend from eastern kentucky and fly it to its new home in Natchitoches la.

CONGRATS!!! With friends like that you don't need enemies...a real friend would have paid for the whole thing!! LOL
You'll like the Citabria and it'll do a lot as long as its kept light. I have a 7AC-CONV with an O-235 engine and it is my faux super Cub. Your 7ECA is quite a bit heavier though. If it doesn't already have VG's I recommend getting them installed. They make my little Champ just mush along and very hard to stall power off.
As for the no-bounce gear....you'll probably come to love it. Lots easier to land an oleo gear than a spring gear in my opinion. Heel brakes.....they do take a little getting used to but after a while they'll become second nature. Actually you might not even use them much if you are on a decent lenghth strip, the Champ/Citabria's land pretty short. Flaps would be nice but then you'll never really learn to slip it in.
Keith

cheerios2 wrote:A good friend called me up and said that he bought a citabria and im paying for 1\2 of it.. good deal.

its a 66 with a freshly inspected wood wing and a fairly high-ish time engine. 66 mean's champ style shock gear and * * heel brakes.

I know its not a "backcountry" airplane per-say (no use-full load\flaps\hp\clown tires)
but I think I will have alot of fun in it. dirt\Grass strips and the occasional ultra-lightweight camping trip are required.

I have flown a 90hp champ and a 180hp super decathlon and loved both. I figure It should fly like the champ due to a little more weight, non symmetrical wing and 115hp. I loved flying the decathlon but have no great urges to do any "inside" maneuvers. The obligatory loop and rolls are mandatory.


trying to pick it up this weekend from eastern kentucky and fly it to its new home in Natchitoches la.

We got a 7KCAB several weeks ago .Tailwheel /acrobat was the primary
motivation .Wings need rear spar a(r/h) replacement. Pete Plum -mister Wood is doing the work .New ceconite all around when done. Looking for
IO-320 or 0-320 Lyc. engine and struts . Have everything else. Any Citabria guys out there know where I can get parts manuals ??? Factory is really not helping in this. When were done remanufactering this N6300N
it will be for sale maybe next spring. Thanks Bill Reid at [email protected] if you have any parts or ???.

cheerios2 wrote:I know its not a "backcountry" airplane per-say (no use-full load\flaps\hp\clown tires)
but I think I will have alot of fun in it.

clown tires, better be careful, there's quite a few clown tired planes here. I myself only have baby clown tires.

Rob

RobBurson wrote:

cheerios2 wrote:I know its not a "backcountry" airplane per-say (no use-full load\flaps\hp\clown tires)
but I think I will have alot of fun in it.

clown tires, better be careful, there's quite a few clown tired planes here. I myself only have baby clown tires.

Rob

Clown tires..haha I like that.

I've found that aircraft with tires of all sizes can and have been piloted by clowns.

I have flown a pa18 with 31's.. it was a blast... but after giving the controls up and seeing them in action where there actually needed.. way beyond my skill level.


besides.. might look funny doing acro

Clown tires! What a nice picture that paints! What was that movie a few years back about a B-17 that gets shot up and one of the crew is an artist? He makes a sketch of the plane with new tires and they magically appear in cartoon mode on the plane. Good show.

Skystrider wrote:Clown tires! What a nice picture that paints! What was that movie a few years back about a B-17 that gets shot up and one of the crew is an artist? He makes a sketch of the plane with new tires and they magically appear in cartoon mode on the plane. Good show.

Rod, that was Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" and it was over 20 years ago...hahahaha.

Good episode though.

1SeventyZ wrote:

Skystrider wrote:Clown tires! What a nice picture that paints! What was that movie a few years back about a B-17 that gets shot up and one of the crew is an artist? He makes a sketch of the plane with new tires and they magically appear in cartoon mode on the plane. Good show.

Rod, that was Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" and it was over 20 years ago...hahahaha.

Good episode though.

Zane, I was first insulted because I thought you were making fun of my age but then I realized that you remembered it to! So the only difference between us is that your memory ..... aaaahhhh what was I going to say?

Skystrider wrote:Zane, I was first insulted because I thought you were making fun of my age but then I realized that you remembered it to! So the only difference between us is that your memory ..... aaaahhhh what was I going to say?

My memory only goes back to about 1979, but I remember that episode clearly.

Cheerio, congrats on the Airbatic. I love those little champs. With good pitch/power technique you can get a no-flaps plane into a lot of places. Getting them out is the problem...

cherrios2, have fun in that Champ! I soloed in a 7AC way back in 1980! Great, stable plane to fly!

thanks guys.

yea zane... really want to eventually bring it up to washington and hit some of those state airports.

Tieton

the beach

Stehekin

easton

and maybe under the right conditions : Rogersburg

182 STOL driver wrote:Any Citabria guys out there know where I can get parts manuals ??? Factory is really not helping in this.

I've got a 1965 Champion 7ECA (not Bellanca, and not American Champion, but the "original" Champion Aircraft), and the only place I could find manuals, etc. was the [url="http://www.bellanca-championclub.com/"]Bellanca-Champion Club[/url]. They sell manuals for the older airplanes on their website. Prices are lower for members, but you do not have to join just to buy a manual.

The Bellanca-Champion Club is heavily biased towards the old Bellanca CruiseAir and CruiseMaster triple-tails and the Bellanca Viking, but there are a few mentions of the Citabrias here and there. Forum activity is likewise more active for the triple-tails (maybe 10 posts for each Citabria post).

Most of the Citabria folks seem to hang out on the Facebook [url="https://www.facebook.com/groups/718166378262033/]Citabria-Decathlon[/url] group. There is a factory guy (Dale Gauger) who is very active and and quite helpful.

One other place you can try is Univair. At OSH they had some hard-to-find Citabria manuals on hand, and said they could get pretty much any manual I needed. (But since my 7ECA came with maintenance and parts manuals, I'm good to go.)

I once owned a '65 7ECA and put a few hundred hours on it. You are in for many hours of fun, carefree flying. The one plane out of those I've owned I miss all the time. Best wishes.