Bellanca Viking

The Bellanca Viking was developed in the late 1960’s and with 1,356 aircraft produced they can still be seen at some airports and there are usually a few at the major air shows. It’s DNA can be trased back to the Cruisair that first flew in the late 1930’s. Production run was 1968 – 1975

I found this great exposed view on the https://aerospaceblog.wordpress.com web site. Much thanks to there information for putting this article together.

While its contemporaries at the time from Piper, Cessna and Beechcraft where all Aluminum, the Viking featured a welded steel tube fuselage, wood wings and fabric covering. Unfortunately wood wings require TLC storage or long term environment to last compared to all Aluminum aircraft that are still flying 6 decades later and are still in production.

Viking’s do come up for sale on the various aviation used aircraft web sites. If you have serious interest in one I highly recommend a prebuy with an A&P with wooden aircraft experience.

Likely because of its lower production numbers & a mid 70’s end of production it seems to have a style that is lost in the see it every day PA-28’s & 172’s.

I found a great historical article on the Viking on the same aerospace blog above beyond the coverage of a wiki page: https://aerospaceblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/bellanca-story-viking-17-30/ Its well worth the visit.

Power options looked to always be 500+ cubic inch variants of Continental and Lycoming’s

Ownership of Bellanca has changed hands a few times and has had its share of up and downs but it looks like it still functions today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AviaBellanca_Aircraft

https://bellancaaircraft.com/

There are a good amount of YouTube videos on the Viking:

The Popular Microsoft Flight sim has a very detailed Viking from Lionheart Creations:

Dedicated web page for the Lionheart Creations Viking: https://lionheartsimulations.com/super_viking.html

The Lionheart Creations Viking 58 page POH pdf for the MS flight sim can be found on: https://downloads.justflight.com/support/manuals/SV_300_Super_Viking_POH.pdf PDF looks like it could offer good pointers on flying the actual thing as it has a very accurate 3D interior with functioning buttons and controls.

Amazon has a few offerings: