American Champion Decathlon American Champion Decathlon The American Champion 8KCAB Decathlon and Super Decathlon are two-seat fixed conventional gear light airplanes designed for flight training and personal use and capable of sustaining aerobatic stresses between +6g and -5"g". The Decathlon entered production in the United States in 1970 as a more powerful and stronger complement to the American Champion Citabria line of aircraft. The Decathlon was designed by the Champion Aircraft Corporation, and is a derivative of the 7-series Citabrias. While the Citabria designs remain successful, and the introduction of the 7KCAB variant of the Citabria had added limited inverted flight capability, the
American Champion Decathlon produced and has made the aluminum-spar wings available for retrofit installation on older aircraft. Compared to the Citabria’s wingspan of , the Decathlon’s wingspan is shorter, at . One of the major developments of the 8KCAB Decathlon over the 7KCAB Citabria is the Decathlon’s wing, which employs a semi-symmetrical airfoil, as opposed to the Citabria’s flat-bottomed airfoil. This change gives the Decathlon better inverted flight and negative-g maneuver capabilities. The landing gear of the Decathlon is in a conventional arrangement. The main gear legs of most Decathlons are made of spring steel, though American Champion began to use aluminum gear