AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 148 / 350

Plate 148 of 350 · Second World War · Military transport

Curtiss C-46 Commando

C-46D 44-78018, painted as Curtiss C-46D Commando 44-78018 (c/n 33414), the aircraft displayed in the World War II Gallery of the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio: a twin-engined military transport with a deep ‘double-bubble’ fuselage, two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radials driving four-bladed Curtiss Electric propellers, a low wing spanning 32.9 m, a single fin and rudder and a tailwheel undercarriage, shown tail down on its wheels with the cargo door closed: olive drab upper surfaces over neutral grey with a scalloped dividing line, black de-icing boots on the outer wing and tailplane leading edges, the blue-and-white star and bar on both sides of the rear fuselage, above the port wing and below the starboard wing, ‘018’ and ‘478018’ in yellow on the fin, and black propeller blades with yellow tips (shape from Curtiss and Bureau of Aeronautics three-views scaled to the published span and length, checked against photographs of this aircraft).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Curtiss C-46D Commando 44-78018 (c/n 33414), the aircraft displayed in the World War II Gallery of the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio: a twin-engined military transport with a deep ‘double-bubble’ fuselage, two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radials driving four-bladed Curtiss Electric propellers, a low wing spanning 32.9 m, a single fin and rudder and a tailwheel undercarriage, shown tail down on its wheels with the cargo door closed: olive drab upper surfaces over neutral grey with a scalloped dividing line, black de-icing boots on the outer wing and tailplane leading edges, the blue-and-white star and bar on both sides of the rear fuselage, above the port wing and below the starboard wing, ‘018’ and ‘478018’ in yellow on the fin, and black propeller blades with yellow tips (shape from Curtiss and Bureau of Aeronautics three-views scaled to the published span and length, checked against photographs of this aircraft). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.7 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (C-46A & C-46D); engine, crew and dimensions are for the C-46D 44-78018 modelled here.

History

The C-46D Commando

Curtiss-Wright designed the CW-20 in the late 1930s as a pressurised 36-seat airliner to take on Douglas, with a deep ‘double-bubble’ fuselage made of two overlapping circles, the upper for passengers and the lower for baggage and freight. The prototype first flew at St Louis on 26 March 1940 with the test pilot Edmund ‘Eddie’ Allen at the controls. The airlines had little need of it once war came, but the US Army Air Forces wanted a large transport, and the design was reworked without pressurisation and with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines as the C-46 Commando.

It was the biggest and heaviest twin-engined aircraft in American wartime service and could carry about twice the load of a C-47. Its great work was over ‘the Hump’, the airlift across the Himalayas from India to China after the Japanese cut the Burma Road, where its ability to climb high with heavy loads mattered more than its teething troubles. Those troubles were many: fuel leaks, hydraulic failures and fires earned it nicknames such as ‘the flying coffin’ among its crews. C-46s also served across the Pacific, and the US Marine Corps flew it as the R5C.

In Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945, C-46s carried paratroops into battle for the only time in Europe, and 19 of the 72 were shot down, many in flames; General Matthew Ridgway barred the type from further airborne operations. After the war the C-46 flew in Korea and in Vietnam with air commando units, until the US Air Force retired it in 1968, and many went on to fly freight in Latin America, Canada and Alaska, where a few still work. 3,181 were built in all.

This airframe

C-46D Commando 44-78018, National Museum of the US Air Force

44-78018The airframe modelled

44-78018 is a C-46D-15-CU, c/n 33414, built by Curtiss at Buffalo for the US Army Air Forces. It served on after the war, its last operational unit being the 605th Air Commando Squadron at Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone, and it was later given to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, where it is displayed in the World War II Gallery. None is in a UK museum. The model shows it as displayed, standing tail down on its wheels: olive drab upper surfaces over neutral grey with a scalloped dividing line, black de-icing boots on the outer wings and tailplane, the star and bar on both sides of the rear fuselage, ‘018’ and ‘478018’ in yellow on the fin, and black propeller blades with yellow tips. The museum shows it with its cargo door open beside a loading display; on the model the door is closed. Its shape comes from Curtiss and Bureau of Aeronautics three-views scaled to the type’s span and length, checked against photographs of this aircraft. Every published photograph shows its port side, so the starboard side and the upper wing markings follow the regulation layout, and the unit emblem behind the fuselage star is simplified.

Where to see one

Not on charge

Survivors are in the Americas, some still flying. None is in a UK museum.

All 350 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.