Burnelli CBY-3

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The Burnelli CBY-3 Loadmaster "flying wing" designed by Vincent J. Burnelli was an evolution of the earlier Burnelli UB-14. Burnelli worked as a designer at Canada Car and Foundry Co. in Montreal and the CBY-3 was built for bush operations in northern Canada. The sole prototype was extensively tested but failed to gain a production contract.

1 Design and development
2 Testing
3 Later use
4 Specifications

[edit] Design and development

Burnelli had a lifelong career devoted to exploiting the advantages of a lifting body airfoil concept that characterized many of his earlier aircraft designs. His last design, the CBW-3 Loadmaster was manufactured by Canada Car and Foundry in Montreal, but reverted back to Burnelli, when the CBY-3 was unable to gain a production contract. Originally registered "CF-BEL-X" while still in the experimental stage, this one-off, twin-boom, aerofoil-section fuselage, high-lift airliner garnered significant interest from the industry.

[edit] Testing

"CF-BEL-X" underwent rigourous testing and proving flights designed to show off its potential. Despite a trouble-free test program and glowing accolades from the press and industry observers, no production orders resulted and the prototype was later sold in the US as "N17N."

[edit] Later use

Moving to Southampton, N.Y., Burnelli remained tireless in his determination to promote his airfoil-shaped fuselage transport planes. In 1955, he adapted his final design, the Burnelli CBY-3 Loadmaster to carry an expedition of 20 passengers and 41 sled dogs, along with their equipment, to the North Pole, but the enterprise was canceled. Until his death in in 1964 at the age of 69, Vincent Burnelli championed his "flying wing" designs.

The Loadmaster continued to fly regularly as a commercial airliner both in northern Canada and South America; acquired with design rights by Airlifts Inc (Miami FL), it went to Venezuela, and returned to Burnelli Avionics for refitting with Wright R-2600s, finally ended its flying days at Baltimore's airport in Maryland. In 1964, the quintessential Burnelli "flying wing" air transport was retired to the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where it sits today, displayed outside, northwest of the B-29 building.