The Super Decathlon has a storied history, and part of the airplane’s considerable charm comes from that lineage. First conceived in 1970 by Champion Aircraft Corporation, the Decathlon 8KCAB was a derivative of the company’s famous Citabria (that’s “airbatic” spelled backward). It was created as a stronger and more capable airplane that could handle outside maneuvers and extended inverted flight. The Decathlon featured an inverted fuel and oil system and a major redesign of the Citabria wing, resulting in a semi-symmetric airfoil that gave it far better inverted performance.

Pilot RC 122” Super Decathlon

GP 88 Engine with a Pro Flow Can exhaust

Futaba guidance

Futaba BLS157HV servos

Fromeco 5200 Lion batteries and switches

Sky Writer Smoke System

Upon opening the boxes the first thing I notice was the same very well protected packing from Pilot RC. Pilot excels in this area and the long separate packaging of hardware makes for ease of finding and separating of every screw, nut and wire.

The one area Pilot could seriously improve on is the assembly instructions. Online you can print a basic manual but it applies to all the sizes of the model and is expected to be used on several different models so experience really helps here.

Ok let’s get started:

 

 

I tend to always start with the landing gear and the tail. This plane can be set up with push/pull or pull/pull on the rudder and I opted for the pull/pull and why I am not sure as I hate making cables. After painting and gluing the control horns in the rudder I made the cables. Surprisingly it went very well as Pilot already completed one side. Because I am using a HV high torque servo I am only using one servo for the rudder.

 

The elevator servos are mounted in the fuselage sides. The linkage is already made and only requires mounting to the servo and the elevator.

 

Special note: I took a picture of a new building stand I purchased at Joe Nall. This thing is fantastic, it can be adjusted to fit most any airplane in any position and is on wheels so maneuvering is a jiffy.

 

Pilot uses the same removable rudder system on all their planes but I don’t have a transportation problem so I customize the mounting. The wire can normally be slid up through the rudder to remove it. Instead I put a bend in the wire at the bottom and use the gear to hold it in place. This makes for a strong and very clean installation.

The vertical stab is held on only by the two carbon fiber tubes that hold the horizontal stab on. This plane is not only scale looking but scale functional as wire needs to be made to hold the tail section steady, together and straight. Again I hate making cable but at least I won’t be reaching down the fuselage trying to line it up. The cables are made to be adjustable which is necessary to square up the tail section.

 

 

I made one cable last night. I have three more still to make.