Full Size Printed Peanut Scale Plans Consolidated XBY-1 An Experimental Navy Bomber

This listing is for Full Size Printed Plans

Consolidated XBY-1

An Experimental Navy Bomber

This Vega look alike is the military version of the Consolidated Fleetster. You can the build it peanut version or enlarge it 100%

One Full size Printed plan on an 11” x 17” sheet

Four Pages of notes and photos

Peanut Scale

Wingspan 13"

Power Rubber

By MARK FINEMAN

In answer to everybody's first question: no, this is not a navalized version of the Lockheed Vega! The resemblance between the Lockheed and Consolidated products is striking to be sure. And the Consolidated Fleetster (the progenitor of the XBY-l) was a contemporary of the much more successful Lockheed ship. The Fleetster, like the Vega, was intended to be s single-engine commercial aircraft, but, for reasons about which one can only speculate, the Heetster never equalled its Burbank contemporary. The Fleetster was actually produced in two versions, a high-wing cabin job (the Vega look-alike) and a parasol wing version with the pilot situated aft of the wing. The Fleetsters, incidentally, used an all-metal monocoque fuselage, unlike the all-wood Vegas. Only about two dozen Fleetsters of all types were ever built.

The depression economy provided little market for the Fleetster, a fact that was not helped by Reuben Fleet's own indifference to the big transport, even though it was named in his honor! In an effort to breathe new life into the project, Consolidated engineers reconfigured the Fleetster into a military aircraft, resulting in the XBY-l, a handsome, monoplane Navy bomber in an era when the Navy was hopelessly smitten with biplanes. Besides being an all-metal monoplane, the XBY-l had an internal bomb bay, a flush-fitting dorsal gunner's hatch, and beautifully panted fixed landing gear. The XBY-l was intended for carrier work, being equipped as it was with a tail wheel and retractable arresting hook. With a fixed span of 45 feet, the big ship might have been quite a job to handle within the confines of a hangar deck, but the XBY-l was scratched by the Navy before she ever saw the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Thank you for your interest