The home of everything related to Twin Navion and Camair aircraft
Between 1952 and 1957, production of the Navion remained stagnant, with the Ryan Aeronautical Company supporting the Navion
fleet with spare parts, most of which were simply pulled out of the storage boxes they were packed in when production ceased.
In 1957, the type certificate and production rights were sold to the Navion Aircraft Company, a division of the Galveston,
Texas based Tubular Service Engineering Company (TUSCO).
Instead of resuming production of a still numerous and inexpensive aircraft, TUSCO opted to remanufacture existing Navions with an extensive list of changes. For $12,000 customers received a like-new Navion, complete with:
A second remanufactured model, the Navion E, was introduced on May 22, 1959, with the IO-470-C producing 250 horsepower and
an optional fifth seat mounted in the baggage compartment. Production was limited to three before the introduction of the
Navion F later that year.
Certified on September 23, the Navion F was to become the most popular of TUSCO's remanufactured Navions, with nearly three
dozen being produced. Once again, the horsepower was increased by 10 with the use of an IO-470-H, bringing it back to the
260 of the Navion B. Another dramatic change was made to the wing's angle of incidence. Although the limiting airspeeds
didn't change, the performance improved noticeably, as did the maintainability of the engines and propellers.
In all three cases, the data plate of the original airframe was restamped to show the conversion to a different model. A
NAvion or Navion A would switch from NAV-4-XXX to NAV-4-XXXD, -XXXE or -XXXF while a Navion B would switch from NAV-4-XXXB
to a -XXXBD, -XXXBE or -XXXBF.