We recently decided to enter into the realm of Korean War Aviation, and are proud to have a 1949 Ryan Navion A model coming into our shop for restoration. It is already in good condition, after being well cared for and often flown by it’s previous owner, who also happened to be an engineer involved in the design of the B-29 Superfortress, during WWII. He went on to work on the Peacemaker Bomber project, and many others before forming his own company to manufacture and sell tooling for aviation.

This airframe is in beautiful condition, but we are going to take a deeper look into the fuel system, hydraulic system, and also rebuild the landing gear, for safe measures.

For anyone interested, here is the PDF File of the service manual for this aircraft type-    Service_Manual

And here is the check list for this Ryan Navion A-Navion Checklist

Sunday the 13th of July 2019, we removed the wings for transportation. This was far from what we wanted to do, as a ferry permit is easy to obtain, but it was a requirement of the  transfer that we haul out by truck, and fly it from a different airfield. Either way, it all went smoothly with the demanting process. Odd word, that one is, but that is the term used.

Here are a few photos of the progress-

The drive to the airfield where we will re-assemble and fly the Navion from is only an hour south of where we loaded up, and the transport went smoothly. 

Here it is waiting for our return next week to begin the work.

September 11th was a somber day, and not spent at the airfield, but the 12th was a different thing entirely. We had the time to get out to the hanger to re attach the wings. Now that the aircraft is sitting on it’s undercarriage, we will get the rigging together.

Here is a peek at the progress.

This is the end goal-

January 2021

We are back at it with getting the Navion  ready to fly again. I hung the new prop and am getting a few things re-rigged. Most of the wiring is done, and we are excited to hear it run soon.

As of November 2021, we have it running smoothly with no leaks.