Convair
XB-46 jet bomber 3-view plans
Among the more elegant designs offered to the USAF to meet its 1944
requirement for a jet bomber, Convair's XB-46 first flew on April 2,
1947. Four General Electric J35 turbojets were housed in wing nacelles,
and a crew of three was carried, with the pilot and copilot sitting in
tandem and the bombardier housed in the nose. No armament was carried
by the prototype, but production B-46s would have had a remotely
controlled tail turret. A 22,000lb bombload could be carried.
Despite the XB-46's straight wing and low-powered J35 engines (J47s
would have been used in production aircraft) it could still cruise at
439mph, and achieve a top speed of 545mph. However, this was still
below the performance of Boeing's swept-wing
B-47,
and only the
solitary XB-46 would be built.
from US patent
files
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