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The American Champion Citabria 7GCBC is the baby in this group of aircraft. The Citabria is based largely on the Aeronca 7 Champ, of which over 10,000 were built between 1946-1951. Champion Aircraft Corporation purchased the rights to the Aeronca 7 in 1951, from which it developed the 7EC Traveller and 7GCB Challenger, followed in 1964 by the Citabria. Bellanca took over production of the Citabria in 1970, building the Citabria from then until 1982. Finally, in 1990 American Champion Aircraft started building the Citabria and its sister aircraft, and they're producing these aircraft in small quantities to this day.
Like all the aircraft in this package, the Citabria has an airframe constructed from steel-tube and covered in fabric. Its powered by a 160hp IO-320 Lycoming attached to a fixed pitch propeller. Its high lift wings are fitted with flaps, giving it good short-field capabilities. The Citabria airframe is stressed for basic aerobatics (+5g,-2g), but in reality its aerobatic ability is quite limited due to high stick forces, a highly cambered aerofoil section and no inverted fuel delivery system.
The Citabria is most at home as a rugged, basic, back-country aircraft. Its also commonly used as a training aircraft, being used for such training duties as ab-initio training, tail-wheel endorsements and basic aerobatic training. Unless you want to carry more than one passenger, the Citabria very closely matches the Cessna 172 as a tourer, plus it can do a few loops and rolls on the way and get you into and out of tighter back-country airstrips.
The American Champion Decathlon 8KCAB was developed from the basic Citabria design by Bellanca in 1970. While at first glance it looks quite similar to the Citabira, it is actually a much more capable aerobatic aircraft.
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The Decathlon's wing is a completely new design with an aerofoil section much more suited to aerobatic flight. Its stick forces are much lighter and better harmonised, and it is stressed for +6g,-5g. Its engine is a more powerful 180hp Lycoming IO-360 with an inverted fuel and oil system, attached to a constant-speed prop.
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These uprated specs make the Decathlon's performance superior to the Citabria in almost every way, including better climb-rate, better cruise speed, faster roll rate, and the ability to fly inverted manoeuvres. The downside to this improved aerobatic performance is slightly inferior short-field capability (the wings do not have flaps) and a slightly lower payload when compared to the Citabria.
The American Champion Scout 8GCBC is a development of the Citabria. All of the changes made to the original Citabria design to make the Scout were aimed at making the Scout a much more capable back country utility aircraft.
Probably the most obvious difference between the Scout and Citabria is the Scout's lengthened undercarriage and larger tyres. This change is aimed at making the Scout able to fly into the roughest of bush airstrips. It also features a more powerful 180hp IO-360 with a constant-speed propeller, giving it improved takeoff acceleration and a higher climb rate. The Scout wings are lengthened versions of the Citabria wings. These longer wings combine with larger flaps to give the Scout short field take off and landing (STOL) performance over-and- above the already good STOL performance of the Citabria.
Included in this package are three variations of the Scout. There is the original, standard Scout with taildragger undercarriage and standard-size tyres, there is a version with taildragger undercarriage and massive 31" tundra-tyres (pictured), and finally there's a version with amphibious floats.
The 31" tundra-tyres look almost comic at first, but they give the Scout the ability to take off and land on almost any unprepared surface, such as creek beds, unprepared grass and beaches.
The amphibious Scout has the ability to take off and land on both water and normal runways. The floats on this version of the Scout have retractable wheels, that are set down for landing on the ground and up for landing on water and during normal flight.
RealView is a special feature included with the Citabria, Decathlon and Scout 2006 package that greatly enhances the feeling of realism when flying in the virtual cockpit view. Put simply, it simulates the g force experienced by a pilot in-flight. Pull back hard on the stick with sufficient speed, and not only will the aircraft pitch up, but the virtual cockpit will move gently upward as your virtual pilot's eyepoint is pushed downward by the g force. The opposite is true for negative g, you will notice the VC pilot eyepoint subtly move upward. Yaw effects are also modeled, the VC eyepoint responds to yaw forces with subtle sideways movement.
The version of RealView included with the Citabria, Decathlon and Scout 2006 is completely smooth in movement and includes an exclusive feature pioneered on our Spitfire XIV — visible stall buffet in VC view accompanied by an audible shudder. This recreates the stall buffet present in real aircraft. Also included is a new gauge for adjusting the magnitude of RealView movement and a new application for permanently setting your preferred RealView startup settings
The 2006 Citabria, Decathlon and Scout all feature our exclusive Smooth Gauge Technology. Put simply, this means that these aircraft's virtual cockpits have the smoothest gauge animation you'll ever see in an FS2004 aircraft. No longer do you have to put up with the jerky, difficult to read gauges normally associated with FS2004 virtual cockpits. This was made possible by using a radical new gauge creation technique, and the smoothness of the animations has to be seen to be believed.
The VC gauges also feature the clearest, most high-resolution graphics you're likely to see in an FS2004 aircraft, meaning you can zoom right in close to the VC gauges without a loss of clarity. You can even select lower-res gauges if you desire (these ‘low-res’ gauges are still clearer than most other aircrafts' VC gauges). Despite this level of visual quality, the framerates in the 2006 Citabria, Decathlon and Scout virtual cockpits remain high at all times, providing a smooth and controllable flight.
Every single switch and lever in the VC can be clicked or dragged on. This combined with the smooth, clear gauges makes us so confident in these aircraft's VCs that we haven't included 2D panels in this release. In all honesty we couldn't have made 2D panels that were as clear or smooth in gauge animation as these 3D panels. With such a usable VC panel and fully clickable VC controls we're sure you will have no desire to go back to the limitations of 2D panel flying!
The Citabria, Decathlon and Scout 2006 package includes its own configuration panel. This is a stand-alone application for configuring various RealAir FS2004 Citabria, Decathlon and Scout settings.
The Config Panel allows you to alter such settings as VC gauge resolution, what textures to use for the windows (dirty or clean), and whether to load the aircraft with their engines running or stopped. You can also use it to set your preferred RealView setting.
There is also a page that allows you to easily select exactly what instruments are installed into the panels for each of the five different aircraft included in this package. We believe this to be the first time a user has been able to configure the VC panel to be exactly the way they want in an FS2004 aircraft. You can configure the panel for each of the five aircraft in this package to be anything from a very basic VFR-only panel to a well-equipped panel with autopilot, suitable for IFR flight.
Bear Gulch Aviation is a private bush strip and ranch located at the western end of Lake Cushman, in the mountains forty nautical miles east of Seattle in Washington, USA.
Surrounded by towering mountain ranges this scenery includes a short grass strip, a rustic, atmospheric hangar for storing your new Scout, a grand homestead and a private jetty for mooring your Scout amphibian. The terrain surrounding Bear Gulch Aviation is some of the most spectacular available in FS2004 and is ideal for flying the Scout. Landing on the strip at Bear Gulch is always a challenge as the approach at either end is surrounded by steep mountains, tall trees or power lines.
The Citabria, Decathlon and Scout 2006 package includes an updated version of Bear Gulch. New features include animated windsocks and a number of new 3D objects including a Ford pickup next to the hangar and power lines at the end of the runway. Bear Gulch is now compatible with the improved water lines of Flight1's ‘Ultimate terrain USA’ as well as the default FS2004 terrain.
This scenery was created for us by Bill Womack, of Antelope Simworks. Bill is known for in the simming world for his quality scenery packages such as the scenery of Reading International Airport that was included with the highly- regarded MAAM-SIM B-25.
Feature List
Five aircraft variants: Included in this package are three aircraft — the Citabria, Decathlon, and Scout. The Scout comes with three different undercarriage configurations — amphibian, taildragger with tundra tyres and taildragger with standard tyres. Each aircraft variant has its own distinctive flight model. Each aircraft variant also has from 6-9 liveries (there is a total of 22 unique liveries included in this package)!
Virtual Cockpit: The aircraft in this package feature virtual cockpit gauges built using our ‘smooth gauge technology’ — this makes the gauges visually clearer and smoother in movement than even the best FS2004 2D gauges. Almost all gauges and levers are controllable with the mouse. All 22 liveries included in this package have their own individually textured VCs.
Configurable VC panels: For the first time in an FS2004 aircraft package, each aircraft's VC panel can have its instrument layout altered to suit the user's preference. This is done simply and easily using the Config Panel included in this package.
Sounds: The aircraft in this package include high-quality custom stereo sounds delivering a dynamic acoustic experience. In addition to vibrant engine, startup and shutdown sounds there are other sound effects including stall buffet, dynamic wind noise and canopy sounds.
Config Panel: A stand-alone application for setting various RealAir Citabria, Decathlon and Scout 2006 preferences, such as default RealView settings and graphics quality settings. You can also use the Config Panel to set whether you want the aircraft in this package to load ‘ready for take off’ (engine running, all switches on), or ‘cold and dark’ (engine off and all switches turned off).
Flight modeling: All the usual RealAir capabilities are featured in these flight models including spinning and side slipping, realistic aerobatics capablity plus stable cruising for touring or IFR flight. The flight models in this package have been refined over previous releases, and each aircraft type has distinctly different flying characteristics.
Latest version of RealView: A feature that simulates the g-force experienced by a pilot in-flight. RealView is completely smooth in operation and does not create unpleasant side effects when performing extreme manoeuvres. A new RealView control panel allows you to separately adjust the magnitude of pitch, yaw and stall buffet movements.
Documents: Included is a a detailed 'Flying Guide' that includes flying and setup help, and three 'Pilot's Handbooks' featuring operating procedures for each aircraft type.
Bear Gulch scenery: Bear Gulch Aviation scenery, created for us by Bill Womack of Antelope Simworks.
Paintkit: If 22 liveries aren't enough... we have a paintkit available for the aircraft in this package, so you can make your very own Citabria, Decathlon or Scout liveries.
Upgrade price available: This package is available at a reduced price for owners of the FS2004 RealAir Decathlon OR the FS2004 RealAir Scout. |
