Warbird Information Exchange

In 1944, the Army accepted a modified version of the C-46A and designated it as XC-46B. The aircraft was converted from the first C-46A built at the Curtiss plant in St. Louis, Mo. (S/N 43-46953). The plane featured two major changes.

First, the nose section was redesigned. The windshield was changed from a streamlined version to a stepped design. The stepped windshield was tested because it was the standard design used on most cargo and bomber aircraft and it was thought the plane might be easier to fly for pilot trainees. After flight tests, it was determined that the windshield posed no significant problems for pilots, and visibility was essentially the same as the original design. The stepped windshield design was incorporated into the C-46E design but only 17 aircraft were completed at the Curtiss St. Louis plant. The nose section design of the XC-46B increased the plane's overall length to 77 feet, 8 inches more than the -A model.

The second major design change was the installation of water injected Pratt & Whitney "Double Wasp" engines. The water-injected version of the engine had 100 horsepower more than the model used on the C-46A and was installed primarily to improve take-off performance with larger loads. The -B model had a gross weight of 51,000 pounds -- 1,400 pounds more than the -A model.

The performance of the XB-46B was basically the same as the C-46A and the design changes were not adopted for production aircraft.