Mike Eynon Web

This... is my first plane. A 1974 Citabria 7GCAA Adventure.

This plane actually has a funny history to it. The plane started its life in Alaska as a bush / acro plane in 1974. Not completely sure of all the details, but over time and harsh circumstances, the plane degraded to the point where it was torn down to a fuselage and a bunch of boxes of worn out parts. From here, the story is a little fuzzy, and may have been embelished some before reaching me... but the lore is that the plane was put up in a poker game and lost. From there (still in boxes) the plane was purchased by an IA mechanic in Southern California. This guy is my hero. He started to rebuild the plane from the ground up and quickly realized that all of the parts were junk. He pretty much had a usable fuselage, and that was it. So, he called American Champion Aircraft (who bought all the tooling and plans for the original Citabrias from Bellanca) and ordered all new parts to build this plane into a 2001 Citabria. In fact, the data plate on the plane says its a 2001 model. That in itself is pretty cool, but even better, since he was building this plane for his personal use, the IA over-built it. Every single structural piece has been powder-coated, and every amount of workmanship was done to better than new standards. In short, I have a 1974 Citabria that I put up against 2000-2004 Citabrias only to have the owners whince.

The plane's engine was also built to better-than-new standards. The stock engine (O320) cranks out 160 hp. My engine was ported and polished, and was dyno'd at 189 hp!!! For those of you who know airplanes... that is a substantial amount for a fabric plane that weighs in at 1200 lbs. As such, I can climb like you would not believe. I can pretty much hold 1200 feet per minute at 70 knots... or for some real fun, I keep the plane 5-10 feet off the runway until I hit 110-120 knots, and then yank back on the stick to for an almost instant 500 foot bump in altitude.