American Champion Citabria

what is it?

The Citabria is a light single-engine, two-seat, fixed conventional gear airplane designed by Champion Aircraft which entered production in the United States in 1964. Designed for flight training, utility and personal use, it is capable of sustaining aerobatic stresses from +5g to -2g. This is reflected by its name, which spells "airbatic" backwards.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 10.2 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 209 km/htop speed
• size 748 kgmax take-off weight
• built 5,238made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 62 years ago, in 1964.
• 🏎️Top speed is 1.6× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 10.2 m: about 2 cars parked nose to tail.

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1964

introduced

1964

status

in production

number built

5,238

role

light utility aircraft and sports plane

makers

AviaBellanca Aircraft

engines

1× Lycoming O-320-A2B

length

6.9 m

wingspan

10.2 m

height

2 m

max take-off weight

748 kg

top speed

209 km/h

cruise speed

201 km/h

range

—

ceiling

5,182 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.