Christen Industries was a US aircraft manufacturer founded by Frank Louis Christensen in the late 1970s in Hollister, California, to produce an aerobatic biplane of his own design in kit form, the Christen Eagle II.
In November 1983, the company acquired Pitts Aerobatics, moved to Afton, Wyoming and continued production of the Pitts Special alongside the Christen Eagle II kits. The company then designed and manufactured the Christen Husky A-1 utility aircraft. Christen Industries was, in turn, bought by Aviat Inc. in 1991, who continued both product lines.
Eagle II
The Christen Eagle II, which later became the Aviat Eagle II in the mid-1990s, is an aerobatic sporting biplane aircraft that has been produced in the United States since the late 1970s.
Designed to compete with the Pitts Special, the Eagle II is marketed in kit form for homebuilding. It set a new standard for completely documented homebuilding kits that revolutionized the homebuilding industry. The Eagle II is a small aircraft of conventional configuration with single-bay, equal-span staggered biplane wings braced with streamlined flying and landing wires and a I-strut to form a box truss. The pilot and a single passenger sit in tandem underneath a large bubble canopy. The tailwheel undercarriage is fixed, with the mainwheels mounted on spring aluminum legs. The main wheels are housed in streamlined fairings. The fuselage and tail are constructed of chromoly steel welded tube, with the forward fuselage skinned in aluminum and the rear fuselage and tail covered in fabric. The wing structure is Sitka spruce wood and fabric covered. The engine cowling is fiberglass. By 2011 over 350 aircraft were flying.
Christen Eagle II, registration N64SC, built ????, serial number 4118 Cointrin (GVA), Geneva, Switzerland, 7 July 2016
