Good afternoon from Airdrie, Alberta! My name is Alex, and welcome to another informal trip report.
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a fellow named Trevor, who had watched a previous video
I made on the Short Skyvan. At the time, the Skyvan was the oldest plane I’d ever flown on,
and he generously offered me a ride in an even older aircraft - a Twin Navion converted in 1955.
After replying with a resounding “yes”, I’m here at Airdrie Airpark,
a small general aviation airport located just 10 kilometres from Calgary’s northern city limits.
The Twin Navion in question is registered as Charlie Foxtrot November Hotel November,
and is painted in this striking orange and yellow livery.
This aircraft model isn’t exactly a common sight these days,
although it does have a fascinating history.
At the end of World War II, North American Aviation and other aircraft companies
foresaw a boom in general aviation. In the case of North American,
they saw that as an opportunity to keep their workforce around,
at least before the anticipated jet aircraft contracts in the late 40s and early 50s.
That led to the development of the original single-engine Navion,
a four-seater personal aircraft first built in 1946. The design team drew heavily from
North American’s military background, hence the P-51-esque canopy and tail.
However, the performance of these single-engined planes could be lacking at times.
A few years later, a group of engineers got together and began work on the first
Twin Navion conversion. Using two 125 horsepower Lycoming O-290-Ds, this conversion made up
for the performance shortcomings of the original Navion, and then some.
The rights to the Twin Navion conversion changed hands a couple times, but in the end around 140
were made, spread out across a few different manufacturers, designs, and designations.
Later conversions like November Hotel November done by the Texas Engineering & Manufacturing
Company or TEMCO, use two Lycoming O-340-A1A engines at 170 horsepower each.
Trevor’s father, Ken, purchased this TEMCO-Riley D-16A in 1977 and it’s been in the family since.
They have a fantastic website dedicated to the Twin Navion and its history at twinnavion.com,
and I’d highly recommend you take a look there if you want to find out more!
By Trevor’s estimate, there are less than 5 of these airplanes still flying in the world,
so being able to take a ride in this one today was an absolute privilege.
Here’s us starting up and departing Airdrie off of runway 12!
Today’s flight would be a brief hop heading northeast towards the town of Drumheller,
with a stop there and then back to Airdrie.
It was a typical fall day in southern Alberta, which meant the occasional bump,
but it didn’t detract from the experience whatsoever.
I did also get to fly the plane briefly which was a ton of fun.
Having only been introduced to the world of light twins recently
through my multi-engine rating, it feels like a very solid airplane!
Learning about the Twin Navion and the general aviation post-war boom was a fascinating look
into a side of aviation that I knew very little about. So I really can’t thank Trevor enough
for the opportunity to actually very carefully fly this piece of history!
Drumheller is a town of around 8,000 people, most famous for its distinction
as the “dinosaur capital of the world”, with its abundance of fossils nearby.
The town itself is in the middle of a river valley, where the Red Deer River has eroded
the terrain to create what’s only a small part of the Alberta Badlands.
It’s one thing to drive there, but another thing to fly right over it,
where you see the prairies just dropping into some fascinating terrain.
Here’s the arrival into Drumheller, landing on runway 16!
After landing in Drumheller, we backtracked and shut down on the main apron there.
Then, I hopped out with cameras in hand to get some footage of
November Hotel November at its best. Enjoy these action shots!
With that fantastic bit of flying done, it was time for me to climb back in
and head home to Airdrie. And yes, that canopy is an interesting design choice by North American,
but it makes it a whole lot easier for me to climb in! Here’s us departing off of runway 16.
We weren’t quite done in the Drumheller area though, since the lack of
traffic and fall colours gave us good reason to take a detour over the rest of the town.
Like I said in the Skyvan video, this really is the sort of stuff that I love
to do - flying rare airplane types and learning as much as I can about them,
and hopefully doing them justice. That’s especially true with a plane like the Twin
Navion, which might not have gotten as much attention as other types did over the years.
Still though, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out who’ve put their heart and soul into
these airplanes over the years, whether they originally worked on the conversion,
or they’re people like Ken and Trevor who’ve kept their airplane in tip-top
shape for over 40 years. Anyone with the passion to maintain these vintage
aircraft as flying history - you’ve got my utmost respect.
Anyway, all too soon, I could see the Calgary skyline in the distance as we approached Airdrie.
Here’s the landing on runway 12!
Thank you so, so much to Trevor for inviting me along for the ride in the Twin Navion.
This really was a special experience I’m not going to forget anytime soon.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.