Forgotten Aircraft - The Douglas XB-19

The XB-19 project had its origin in a secret Army Air Corps project of the mid 'thirties for an advanced long-range bomber. On February 5, 1935, the Army Air Corps initiated a secret project for an experimental long-range bomber, with the goal of seeing just how far the state of the art could be pushed. It was assigned the codename "Project D", and was classified top secret. No production was envisaged, since "Project D" was more of a proof-of-concept vehicle than it was a serious proposal for a production military aircraft.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• XB-19
• Douglas
• Aircraft
• Bomber
• aviation
• history
• airplane
• ww2

[Streamliner009]

such a piece of aviation's history, scrapped.... what a pity

[gto66solstice08]

Bugs Bunny flew one in the cartoon "Hare Force" , along with a pesky Gremlin

[TheSRalston]

Good thing the test pilot was wearing a khaki uniform, he needed that color after seeing what a wobbly take off and landing this plane had, lol...

[TheSRalston]

Why does a plane, when doing a test flight, doesn´t hide its landing gear? What a behemoth!!

[lupe045]

My gosh, with a cruising speed of just 135 mph a target 1750 miles away (3500 mile round trip) would be around a 24 hour mission.

[AnotherGlenn]

Is that plane unstable in pitch?

[Contrajoe]

@Hawgmech I'm pretty sure that's the XC-99

[twoZJs]

Back then general aviation works would design the wheel size in proportion with the aircraft size. That idea quit during the B-36 try-outs. So they tried multi-smaller tires on the main struts, Wa-Li! it works!

HawgMech, that plane at Kelly was a transport version of the B-36. Its being refurbished and is at the AF museum in Ohio.

[Hawgmech]

Don't know if it's still there, but one of these used to sit off the edge of the ramp at Kelly AFB TX. Last time I saw it was probably 1989.

[powergirl901]

That's the most unstable take off and landing I've seen yet. Even the takeoff was wobbly, but maybe with 28 tons of bombs it would be smoother, who knows. The US Army made good with the B-47 though. (I know it's a USAF plane). That was a 3 man crew, nuclear capable, swept wing and faster than most fighters of the time. B-47 exceeded specifications and we bought thousands of them.

[freeman8128]

That's amazing! - Why did it not see production for WW2? What was the problem? Underpowered? The height of the Tail - If a problem - could have been solved as with the Lockheed Constellation by having more than one.