US Air Force orders the Convair Model 6 ultra-heavy airlifter

[Vahe Demirjian]

I read that Convair proposed the Model 6 heavy-lift transport as a derivative of the Advanced C-99 project with the backswept wings and tail surfaces from the YB-60 competitor to the B-52, and I wanted to ask what the course of US heavy-lift capability during the early Cold War would have been like if it had bought the Model 6 rather than operate the C-124 Globemaster II.

 

[royabulgaf]

I wasn-t aware of this project, but I know there wasn't much serious interest in the civil C-99 by the airlines. Way too big for the airports, and too many passenger seats to fill. Now the huge bombers would fly from specially prepared bases with big sturdy runways, drop tjheir bombs, and if they are lucky return to said base. Cargo aircraft would need to go anywhere from anywhere. THe aircraft would have to use available infrastructure.

 

[aim9xray]

I wanted to ask what the course of US heavy-lift capability during the early Cold War would have been like if it had bought the Model 6 rather than operate the C-124 Globemaster II.

Disastrous. Tell us why.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

I wanted to ask what the course of US heavy-lift capability during the early Cold War would have been like if it had bought the Model 6 rather than operate the C-124 Globemaster II.

Disastrous. Tell us why.

The C-124 was an enlarged derivative of a WW2-era piston-powered transport design, the C-74 Globemaster I, and the jet age made the C-74 and C-124 obsolete. The Model 6 would have been light years ahead of the C-132 and C-133 designs in terms of being a jet-powered heavy-lift plane, and if the Model 6 had been ordered by the USAF, then the C-132 and C-133 would never been designed.

 

[aim9xray]

Possibly. But not what I'm thinking of. Please try again. Aviation history does not consist just of airplanes.

 

[isayyo2]

I presume this is the "Advanced C-99" design? https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/04/28/convair-xc-99/

I'd rather wait for the C-132 and its turboprop engines tbh

 

[Nik]

That's a big booger...
IMHO, not enough wheels for sub-par fields, not nearly enough. Referenced link had it crack concrete under-foot with vibration from test running its engines...

I'm impressed this was the first 'big' aircraft that could 'thrust-reverse' and back-up across hard-standing. Seems such astonished by-standers, too...

 

[Archibald]

Just for the fun of it... Wikipedia has decent 3-views of both colossus: C-99 and C-133. So I married them. This a C-99 with C-133 wings, inverted to be propulsive ! Four T-34s are more than enough to replace 6*R4360s...

In a rationale universe, in 1951 the Air Force would have bought a squadron worth of C-99As to fly cargo directly from CONUS to Korea, across the Pacific.
Then, with the advent of the T-34, a C-99B would have taken the role of both C-132 (aborted) and C-133 (was useful but flawed and dangerous).
This would have unlocked airlines orders, with civilian C-99B (turboprop) crossing the Atlantic with more than 200 passengers.

Note that C-99 fuselage diameter was wider than all the Lockheed (and Douglas) transports stuck at 10 ft: C-130, C-133 and C-141.

 

[Archibald]

Trying to do better, with my limited skills...