American Champion Decathlon

The American Champion Decathlon, model 8KCAB, is a two-seat light airplane with fixed conventional landing gear, built for flight training and personal flying and certified to sustain aerobatic loads between +6 g and -5 g. Champion Aircraft Corporation designed it as a stronger and more powerful companion to the Citabria, which could not fly the outside maneuvers that need heavy negative g. Its semi-symmetrical wing, fuel injection and inverted oil system are the main changes from the Citabria 7KCAB. Production began in the early 1970s, Bellanca built over 600 and moved to the Super Decathlon version during 1976, and production stopped when Bellanca's assets were liquidated. American Champion acquired the design in 1990, restarted the Super Decathlon that year and still builds it, with a 210 horsepower Xtreme version introduced in 2012.