The big Curtiss C-46 Commando transport of World War II was a milestone in air transport. With a wingspan greater than that of a four-engine B-17, the C-46 used a pair of R-2800 radial engines to get it aloft at a gross weight of 56,000 pounds. It was the largest twin-engine aircraft in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

Military Commandos hauled troops and carried vehicles and light aircraft, loaded through a large aperture in the left side of the fuselage.

The C-46 in popular literature has been viewed as a maintenance-prone airlifter when compared with the smaller Douglas C-47. And yet the Commando’s weight-lifting and altitude performance made it the star of the ongoing Allied airlift over the Himalayas in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.

Peace in 1945 cut short the production of C-46s after more than 3,000 were built. The War Assets Administration (WAA) worked with the Air Force to make C-46s available to civilian operators.

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Aircraft manufacturers have long been adept at leveraging designs to gain as much utility — and production — as possible.

The dual tracks of commercial transport and military airlift had more in common in the 1940s than today. It was an era before low-sitting, end-loading, and air-dropping cargo behemoths defined military transport procurement. The need for moving large numbers of troops and large numbers of airline passengers over long distances had some commonality back then.

World War II blunted the development of pure civilian transports for the duration, but big players in the airline business, including Pan American Airways, had important wartime transport duties. Pan American also had enough clout to influence the development of a super transport for the Navy that might one day also be an ocean-spanning airliner.

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As the fledgling U.S. Army Air Service was still figuring things out, in 1924 it created the C-Class of aircraft to include cargo and personnel transport, doing away with an earlier T-series that indicated Transport.

And C-Cargo it has been ever since, starting with the original Douglas C-1 biplane, introduced in 1925.

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The McDonnell Aircraft Company expressed a fondness for paranormal or spooky aircraft names.

This may date back to the company’s ambitious XP-67 fighter design during World War II occasionally referred to as the Bat or Moonbat, although the official nature of such a moniker is unclear.

Nonetheless, McDonnell — later McDonnell-Douglas and now part of the mega Boeing holdings — ran through a list of names with its ensuing jet fighters, including Phantom, Banshee, Goblin, and the F3H Demon.

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A lot of moving parts characterized the development of aeronautics from 1941 to the end of World War II in 1945.

For the U.S. Navy, the creation of the twin-engine XF7F-1 Tigercat design in the summer of 1941 was a blend of technology and tradition.

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A century ago in May 1919, three huge seaplanes set out to be the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, albeit with stops en route in Canada and the Azores. One of the three, designated NC-4, completed the journey, reaching the final destination of Plymouth, England, on May 31.

The aircraft that proved capable of crossing the Atlantic in 1919 was born in desperate times during World War I. The German navy had perfected its U-boats in that war, and Allied shipping paid a terrible price. The U.S. Navy sought a far-ranging flying boat to combat the enemy submarines at sea.

Designed by Glenn Curtiss in collaboration with Navy engineers and pilots in the fall of 1917, the resulting seaplane was too late for wartime service. But its great range made this aircraft a natural for long overwater flights.

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If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve heard of Waco aircraft. The name derives from the last initial of its one of founders, George Weaver, and an abbreviated form of Aircraft Company, hence Waco.

Weaver and his partners set up business in Ohio in 1920 under the Waco name. The company became Advance Aircraft for awhile, but the biplanes are called Wacos, pronounced Wah-co, not Way-co. [Read more…]