Canadian Car & Foundry Burnelli UB-14

The Burnelli UB-14 was one of the span-loader design aircraft, which used their wide fuselage for lifting.
One prototype crashed, but the pilot and all passengers survived easily because the fuselage of a
span-loader has got a much greater strength than a normal fuselage.
Itīs also a transport of great rentability and needs for the same freight much less powerful engines
than other plane designs. Burnelliīs first transport aircraft, the span-loader RB-1 lifted in 1920 already
two pilots, 32 passengers with only two 550PS engines (compare: Dc-3 of 1935 lifted 2 pilots and 28 passengers
with two 1.200PS engines and was called to be of great rentability!).
The UB-14 only stands for a list of brilliant transports that Burnelli designed from 1920 until
1945 (RB-1, RB-2, CB-16, UB-20, UB-14, UB-14B and, especially, CBY-3 with 32 passengers),
but I chose it because it was so near the serial production like no other of Burnelliīs planes.
In the early 1930īs General Hap Arnold (Chief of USAAF) was enthused about the UB-14, because this plane
could carry 5.500kg of loads at an empty weight of 4.200kg. He demanded for 30 planes, and
President Roosevelt was just about to sign the contract, when, as part of the usual small talk,
Burnelli mentioned that his main sponsor was Arthur Pew. Arthur Pew was republican, Roosevelt was democrat,
and, as expectable, they didnīt like each other. In fact, they hated themselves. That was it.
To be honest, the span-loader design also has some problems: Itīs hard to integrate a pressure cabin
because the fuselage is flat instead of round, the speeds arenīt great because of the drag the
fuselage causes, and the pilots can hardly see to the left or right side, because there are the engines.
But for freight transport, itīs a superior concept.