Loving a Ryan Navion

By Charles H Stites

I PROCLAIM THAT my ownership of a 51-year-old, and four decades out of production, classic Ryan Navion is both logical and reasonable, and that not once in these past four years have I actually taken leave of my common sense.

I have taken leave of a large but unrecorded number of labour hours (best not to know), and a recorded amount of funds (also probably best not to know). What have I gained for this investment of time, funds and emotion? A wonderful airplane that serves me as if a half-century has not passed; an airplane that has become a friend.

Choosing the Navion over others was simplified when I witnessed a long-time Navion owner and mechanic pound almost mercilessly on the wing of one in his shop. He struck the skin at mid-chord, away from the reinforcement of skin to rib rivets, and there was not the slightest dent or deformation. Smiling, he bragged that, "The thinnest skin on the Navion was the thickest skin on a Cessna 172." He walked me through his hangar and had me lift and hold hefty part after part, and he spoke of comfort, stability, visibility, and performance.

It was not a hot day, and I remember a breeze through the open door, but I seemed to be getting a bit warm as he kept walking and talking, and I stopped to stare at this big single. When I'd seen one before, I'd thought it homely. Now, a long-legged comeliness began to appear before me as the mechanic's voice faded into a distant drone. 'This could be the one,' I began to think, 'Not this very one, but one just like it.' Then, the mechanic's voice intruded just enough to make me ask him to repeat what I thought I'd heard. Did he really say that the very men, the designers and engineers responsible for the P-51 had created the Navion? He did, he could prove it if I doubted him, and oh yes, if I wanted to, I could fly his Navion if I really thought I was interested in one.

Forty-eight hours later, I stepped from his airplane, looked to my wife and nodded 'yes' as an understatement. From that moment, the search began that soon led me to N4891K, the airplane that has changed my perception of myself as a pilot, and has continued to feed a fever.

Although N4891K arrived in flyable condition, I had already decided to make a few modest improvements to the panel, and perhaps new carpet for the interior. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we practise to deceive ourselves. The urge for modest improvements and upgrades has snowballed into a chronological list that includes a completely revised panel, rewired electrical system, new static lines, new insulation, new carpet, Cleveland brake conversion, new propeller, new glass, new leather interior, remote oil filter conversion kit, and most recently, a completely new custom paint scheme.

Over the last four years there have also been a number of parts replaced along with the ordinary required maintenance and annual inspections. There has been one far from ordinary major disassembly and repair project (an occasion of much hand-wringing and expense). Again, what do I have to show for all the effort and expense? Many wonderful hours in one of the most comfortable and sweet flying airplanes I've had the pleasure to have flown.

N4891K has travelled most of the eastern half of the