Wanting to start a Christavia Mk.4

[amphib164]

I'm looking to start a Christavia project, but I'm not sure what the "kit" consists of, how good the plans are, and how many builders there are out there.  The info I seem to find is more company oriented, so all of it is "good".  I would like to know h.p. range for the plane, and if anyone has put one on floats, as that would be the end use.  Its seems like the ideal plane for what I'm looking, but I would like to get some real builder feedback.  Thanks.

[flywithpat]

I not sure how active this group is but it might be worth joining and asking questions there.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christavia/

(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christavia/)

[rv8bldr]

I have a set of plans for both the Christavia MK I and the MK IV. The plans themselves are pretty good, and Ron Mason (the designer) is only a couple of hours away from where I live. However, I have since started building a Bearhawk which, while similar (4 place, high wing, pseudo-STOL), it has WAY more utility for what would be a comparable build cost. In addition, there is a company (AviPro) that provides everything from a quick-build kit down to pre-manufactured components (http://www.bearhawkaircraft.com/).

There is a very active and helpful yahoo group for the Bearhawk (if you look it up, there are a couple of groups for the 4 place; one is aircraft related only, the other is wide open to all kinds of useless posts). Eric Newton has put together a very extensive scratch build manual with hundreds of photos and lots of description, and Russ Erb has put together a humongous web-site-on-a-disk that has over 3500 photos and, again, a lots of descriptive text.

Any "kits" you get for either the Christavia or the Bearhawk will be materials only, unless you buy pre-manufactured components for the Bearhawk from AviPro. There isn't anything like a Van's Aircraft or Zenith equivalent around.

Cheers