This picture, taken in early 1966, shows my father, Warner Kenyon, standing beside his Ryan Navion A, registration number N4332K.
This Navion, built in 1948, was the last in a long line of aircraft my father owned and flew. It was certainly the most advanced, being equipped with retractable gear and a variable-pitch propeller among other features. Unlike the Piper and Stinson aircraft my father owned, the Navion was built of aluminum sheets riveted to aluminum formers. It was roomy enough to accommodate the pilot and three passengers.
According to an article by Bud Davisson posted on Pilotfriend.com, "When the second world war ended North American Aviation, maker of the Harvard trainer (Americans call it A6, or Texan) and the superior P-51 Mustang needed to diversify. With military contracts gone, they turned to general aviation and designed this remarkable four place retractable cross country private aircraft. Some components like the landing gear bear distinct resemblance to P-51 parts and the tail is similar. North American put the aircraft into production and turned out 1,100 of them between 1946 and 1947...North American sold the design to Ryan [which built] more than a thousand with some variation in power and fuel capacity from 1948 to the early 50s."
Ryan also produced a military version, known as the L-17. Used as a liaison aircraft, it saw service in the Korean War.
Davisson concludes, "In total, nearly 1,100 Navions were built for the military. Another 1,100 were built for the civilian market so, by 1951, over 2,200* in total had taken to the air. Probably the most important fact about the Navion's longevity is that about 1,400 of the machines are still listed on the civil register as being flying airplanes. That is a survival rate of about 60%, which may be the highest of any airplane ever built."
As with the amphibious Republic Seabee, the manufacturers of the Navion believed that demobilized pilots would continue flying once they returned to civilian life. But the predicted boom in postwar civilian aviation did not materialize to the extent the manufacturers had envisioned.
Navion N4332K was still flying in 2012. Like most Navions, it has undergone modifications. The in-flight photographs here, taken on February 25, 2012, over Chino, CA, show it fitted with a three-blade propeller and tip tanks.
* The General Aviation Handbooks gives the total number of Navions produced as 2,634.
Top photograph by Bob Kates, courtesy William E. Martin
Bottom photographs copyright © Helicopterfriend. Used with permission.
Sources: Pilotfriend.com, Wikipedia.
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