Marine Air,
Here's something I wrote up for the CAF SoCal Wing way back when.
Now that I’m leading the charge on grant funding for our wing, I have time to talk about something I really like – NAvions! Yes NAvion with a capital "NA", I’ll get back to that in a minute. First lets talk about WWII and aviation. Contracts handed out by the Government in the war years to produce a myriad of aircraft were plentiful. Less than two weeks after the hostilities ended with Japan, which was a surprise for aircraft manufacturers because of the atomic bomb ended it rather abruptly, almost all aircraft orders were cancelled. In mid 1945 North American Aviation had over 31,000 contractual airframes to build for the good old USA. After the Japanese surrendered the orders dropped to fewer than 30 airframes. That’s right 30! The story goes the CEO of North American Aircraft slammed a Sears catalog on the conference table in front of all the execs and stated: "I can’t think of a darn thing to build, a dishwasher, pans what?" In desperation one of the engineering execs said: "What about an airplane?" and so the NAvion was born! From pencil on paper to a flying aircraft took less than 90 days. Some sacrifices were made to produce the NAvion, the leading sacrifice being profit. The airframe costs $9000 to manufacture and had a sales price of $7000. NAA wanted to keep the best aeronautical engineers on staff and that’s how they did it. Later they would produce the F-86 and make back the money they lost. The idea with the NAvion from a marketing standpoint is that all these guys coming out of the newly formed Air Force after the war would want to continue flying back home. They would love their NAA aircraft so much pilots would purchase a NAvion to share with the wife and kids. It kinda looks like a P-51 for dads. Even the name is a conglomeration of North American aViatION. The Army put in an order for several hundred, the specs for the airframe were in large part dictated by the Army. So things should be fine right? Wrong, in 1946 the Army dropped it’s order and almost all the pilots coming home didn’t want to share what they had been through with anybody. NAA began a campaign to market the NAvion to the general public. That’s where my plane comes in. Fourth production N91103, and six production N91105 NAvions flew around the country to promote the plane. My plane, our ramp queen, fifth production N91104 stayed at Mines Field (LAX) and served as the company demonstrator for potential buyers, sometimes twelve a day. The plane was flown on many such flights by RJ Woods, the chief designer of the P-39. The NAvion was the first production high-performance-complex aircraft ever offered for sale to the US public. 91104 came to life July 17th 1946. The thing I love about the bird is that it’s almost all original. Same engine (E-185-3), same panel, same almost everything. The skins were intended for B-25’s that never got built, the instruments are meant for T-6’s and P-51’s that never got built. I love it. Anyway NAA sold off the rights to build Navions (they dropped the "A") when Korea needed those F-86’s and the Army did refill it’s order later on, as L-17’s, also used in Korea. 91104 is now over 60 years old. I wonder who will be puttering around the sky in her 60 years from now?
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Vosburgh Airfield, P.O. Box 207, New Cuyama, CA 93254
jason.vosburgh@vosburghairfield.comCell: (805) 766-3880
www.airnav.com/airport/5CN4www.VosburghAirfield.com
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So an AD came out to remove the flares and cover the holes.