I love airplane wrecks. The De Luca's back yard is home to about 30 of them - all of them Navions.
Photo courtesy of Trevor McTavish

It started with a hiss coming from beneath the wing. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered one of the upper main landing gear legs had cracked, not in the tube, but in the weld.

Wondering if we could repair this ourselves, we set out to learn what we could of Navion landing gear legs. Since we had a damaged and corroded spare at our disposal, we cut it in half. What we learned, was not very encouraging:

• Navion legs are a series of tubes sliding inside one another and furnace brazed together. Because brazing has a lower melting point than steel, the heat of welding would cause the copper in the brazing to contaminate the weld.
  

• Finding a replacement is darn near impossible. They're clearly shown in the Twin Navion parts catalogue, but physically inspecting them yielded no Twin Navion or single Navion part numbers. In fact, the only numbers appeared to be casting numbers on the lower axle/oleo assembly.
  

• Measuring our landing gear, and asking several other D-16A owners to do the same, we determined that TEMCO had altered the landing gear for the heavier D-16A, and this included a larger diameter oleo (2.240 inches on the D-16A verse 2.230 inches on standard Navions - yes, 0.010 inches makes a world of difference!). One mechanic familiar with such situations called the parts "unobtainium."

Now all we needed was to find a new D-16A landing gear leg. No problem, right? After all, TEMCO must have made about 100 pairs, 60 years ago. Enter the De Lucas.

Tom and Carol De Luca have been supporting Navion owners for about half a century. Starting out in southern California in the ceramics business, they moved north to a larger facility in Banning. At the time, they owned a single-engine Cessna. A friend introduced them to Navions, and to the American Navion Society, and in short order, the De Lucas had traded ceramics for the airplane parts business.

Specializing only in Navions, Tom would make trips around the USA buying damaged and unwanted airframes. Most were stripped of anything useful, their carcasses cast off to the couple's backyard. From their remains, it's clear that baggage compartment doors were a hot item. Nearly three dozen fuselages, and not a single door left among them.

Sadly, Tom passed away a couple years ago, but I was still able to contact Carol. Knowing I would need measurements to confirm what I was looking at, I asked Carol if I could pay her a visit. She agreed, and I was soon on the airlines to Palm Springs (less than an hour away by rental car).

After showing me around the property, Carol led me into the warehouse, and right to what I was looking for - shelves stacked full of landing gear bits. There were used ones, damaged ones, and ones Tom overhauled. Armed with a calliper, I struck pay dirt - a pair of matching main gear legs, overhauled and tagged as Twin Navion parts, and a pair of oleos measuring 2.240 inches in diameter.

With those set aside, I spent the rest of my day at the De Luca's looking around, eager to discover what other Navion treasures I could find. Stacks of canopies, shelves of seats, boxes upon boxes of every nut, bolt, bushing, etc. you could need for your Navion problem. Need to install a set of flare tubes in your Oshkosh-bound restoration? Tom squirreled them away, just waiting for you. I even discovered a couple Twin Navion bits. Yes, I took most of them home too.

At the time of my May 2018 visit, Carol was looking to sell the company. She said someone was interested, but would continue selling parts until the company was finally sold. She operates only via the telephone, and everything in the warehouse is sorted by the item number used in the Ryan Navion Parts Catalogue. If you're looking for anything Navion-related, I recommend you give her a call.

De Luca of California Inc.
Carol De Luca
phone: 951-849-7594
fax: 951-849-0084

While most of the airframes were either wrecks when they arrived, or have been stripped down to become one, there were two couple relatively intact projects sitting on trailers. The last photo shows one had been bought by Tom and his brother as a long-term restoration project. Completely gutted, it now sits on a trailer waiting for anyone willing to put it all back together. The white one in the picture above is far more complete.
Photo courtesy of Trevor McTavish

This is what I had come to California in search of - the De Luca's collection of main landing gear parts. The upper photo shows just one-third of their stock. The lower photo shows what I discovered - four pieces of pure Twin Navion "unobtainium."
Photo courtesy of Trevor McTavish

Having found my landing gear parts, I spent a few more hours exploring the back yard. To the casual observer they were all Navions, but there were also two Twin Navions. Seperated from their wings, with the tell-tale engine nacelles, I had to match up the paint scheme to locate the fuselage of TN-6. TTN-88 was harder. Only by spotting the distinctive throttle quadrant, could I find its fuselage.
Photo courtesy of Trevor McTavish