Low Rider Citabria

P

pete

New member
Hi. I am considering this aircraft for my first plane purchase. It's got new fabric and a low time engine. I have not yet seen this plane in person but does the landing gear look a little low slung to you? This used to be a 7ECA converted to a 7GCAA (150 HP Lycoming now)
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q250/podo_photo/Citabriasale002.jpg
Thanks a bunch,
Pete
 
Pete-

It does look a little low, but I would check it out. My friend had a 150 hp GCAA with oleo gear. I have a 118 hp 7ECA with spring gear. He climbed a lot faster, though we cruised the same. Later, he put bigger tires on it, which made it look pretty cool.

The gear looks more spread out than the spring gear does, but I don't think the prop is actually closer to the ground.

At first I thought it might just be a digital illusion. If you stretch the photo by 50 pixels, it looks better :)

-Alex
 
Hi Alex,

How fast was that cruise speed and what power settings for each of you?

Hi Pete,

To me the gear in that picture does look a bit spread out. Have a look at http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/citabria.html the Citabria there looks a bit happier! I wonder if the gear is bent with toe out and pulling it out of the hangar as looks like has just happened has splayed the gear out. My mate has a Witman Tailwind with toe in and after he's pushed it back into the hangar he pushes up on the strut to allow the gear to spring back in. Also I read somewhere on this site about upgrading the taxi springs when going to 150 hp on the 7ECA?

Thanks,
Andrew.
 
Andrew,

I don't recall the cruise power settings we used. I do remember that my friend's GCAA was no faster than my 7ECA in level flight, even at full throttle. My plane had the newer gear, wheel pants, a freshly overhauled prop, and a nicer fabric job. Maybe that added up and gave me the edge.

-Alex
 
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