Citabria

A good friend of mine (a private pilot) has recently acquired a full size Bellanca Citabria. I’ve always had a weak spot for the Citabria, in particular the 1/6 scale one from the SIG kit, made in USA. My late uncle Jack had also built one and only a few weeks before this friend told me about his new private plane, I had seen an original SIG kit for sale in Germany. I was lucky, it was still available and a few mail exchanges later, it was on its way to me. I will roughly replicate the full size Citabria of my friend, it’s not my intention to make a contest quality scale replica.

The kit is very nice. Although it’s old school, it’s very well designed with good quality wood. It replicates the full scale rather well. The only problems are the engine cowling and the wheel pants. The ones from the kit represent an older Citabria model and the differences are just too obvious to ignore. I’m sure I would have felt bad if I didn’t do the effort of correcting this, so I spent a bit of time creating new masters and moulds for these. The model is still under construction at time of writing. It will be powered with a RCV 58 CD four stroke engine which is very compact thanks to the rotary valve, so it will be completely hidden inside the cowling.

Below are some progress photographs. I’ll update the page as the model progresses.

the full size Citabria to be replicated shown here at Koksijde Air Base

the nice kit from SIG Manufacturing, USA

wing build

fin and rudder build

fuselage build

early work on the corrected engine cowling

masters in progress

new cowling and wheel pant masters on the left versus the kit supplied ones on the right

masters in the parting boards, ready for laying up the first mould halves

first mould halves ready

first cowl, spinner and wheel pant coming out of the moulds

trial fit of the RCV 58 CD engine

trial fit of the new cowl and spinner (engine is completely enclosed)

trial fitting the wing struts

to be continued...

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