I have not built a CA 61 but do have the plans and construction manual
and with my new garage (room for the 1 piece spar) am considering it
as a project. The plans are detailed and the plane is well engineered
according to my research. It is all wood with ply covered fuselage
and partial ply covered wing, leading edge D tube and inboard area to
the rear spar. The plans include info on installing a VW or small
Cont. It is a real scratch built design including a homemade
tailwheel if one wants.

For a cantilever wing it is reasonably simple with a design that
allows the ribs to be buillt complete and slipped over the spar rather
than 3 piece ribs and full depth spars requiring carefully formed spar
caps. It is a one piece spar so about 30 feet of room is needed for
building, full span spar plus some wiggle room. I can jig up
diagonally in my shop and the spar and wing will fit my double garage.
There are no flaps and it uses the NACA 4415 airfoil.

The plane is small but I talked to a local elderly gent who owned one
and he loved it. Good speed for low horses and handled well in the
air. It was fairly slick on final and airspeed control and side
slipping worked well for approach. He said it had no bad habits and a
gentle stall below 45mph with good buffet.

Tony Bingelis' book, The Sportplane Builder, has a chart for the
dimensions of some homebuilt cockpits. The firewall to bulkhead
dimension is 54 inches. The Jodel D-11 is listed as 46 inches. The
single seat Jodels are also quite small.