Ryan Navion

The Navion is a single-engine, unpressurized, four-seat light aircraft with retractable landing gear, originally designed and built by North American Aviation in the 1940s and later built by Ryan Aeronautical Company and the Tubular Steel Corporation. It was envisioned as the aircraft that would match the expected postwar boom in civilian aviation and was designed along the general lines of the same company that produced the P-51 Mustang and the T-28 Trojan. North American built 1,109 Navions in 1946 and 1947, including 83 L-17As for the Army and National Guard, selling them below cost. Ryan acquired the design in 1947 and built 1,240 more before production ended in 1951, and later owners built a few more.