The Douglas XB-19 was a four-engined, piston-driven heavy bomber produced by the

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during the early 1940s. It was the largest bomber built for the USAAF until

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

, and was originally given the designation XBLR-2 (''XBLR'' denoting "Experimental Bomber Long Range").

Design and development

The XB-19 project was intended to test flight characteristics and design techniques for giant bombers. Despite advances in technology that made the XB-19 obsolete before it was completed, the Army Air Corps believed the prototype would be useful for testing despite Douglas Aircraft wanting to cancel the expensive project. Its construction took so long that competition for the contracts to build the XB-35 and XB-36 occurred two months before its first flight. The plane first flew on 27 June 1941, more than three years after the construction contract was awarded. It was based at Wright Field from January to November 1942. In 1943 the Wright R-3350 engines were replaced with liquid-cooled W24 Allison V-3420-11 by the aircraft division of

Fisher Body Fisher Body was an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan. A division of General Motors for many years, in 1984 it was dissolved to form other General Motors divisions. Fisher & Company (originally Allo ...

in support of the

XB-39 The Boeing XB-39 Superfortress was a United States prototype bomber aircraft, a single example of the B-29 Superfortress converted to fly with alternative powerplants. It was intended to demonstrate that the B-29 could still be put into service ...

project. As part of the program it was equipped with engine driven auxiliary powerplants. After completion of testing the XB-19 was earmarked for conversion into a cargo aircraft, but modifications were not completed, and the aircraft flew for the last time on August 17, 1946. It was eventually scrapped at Tucson in June 1949.

Surviving artifacts

The new U.S. Air Force had plans to save the B-19 for eventual display, but in 1949 the Air Force did not have a program to save historic aircraft and the Air Force Museum had not yet been built. The B-19 was therefore scrapped, but two of its enormous main tires were saved. One was put on display at the Hill Aerospace Museum at

Hill Air Force Base Hill Air Force Base is a major U.S. Air Force (USAF) base located in northern Utah, just south of the city of Ogden, and bordering the Cities of Layton, Clearfield, Riverdale, Roy, and Sunset with its largest border immediately adjacent to ...

in Ogden, Utah and the other has been on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, in the "Early Years" gallery for many years.

Specifications (XB-19)

References

Footnotes

Notes

External links

Encyclopedia of American aircraft
{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas B-19 1940s United States bomber aircraft B-19 Four-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1941 Four-engined piston aircraft