Commando 43-47271

VARIANT: Curtiss C-46A-60-CK Commando

USAAF SERIAL NUMBER (S/N): 43-47271

CURTISS CONSTRUCTION NUMBER (C/N): 342

COMMANDO LINE NUMBER (L/N): CK319

FATE: Unknown

  April 1945 to May 1945

  43-47271 - USAAF (USA)

14 April 1945

Delivered from the Curtiss-Wright factory in Louisville, KY.

Equipped with R-2800-75 engines and painted olive drab with light grey undersides.

28 April 1945

Ferried to Ladd AFB, AK for handover to the Soviet Union.

  May 1945 to 1946

  43-47271 - NII VVS (AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE) (USSR)

15 May 1945

Transferred to the Soviet Air Force Research Institute under the 4^th Lend-Lease Protocol, for the aircraft to be evaluated before the possible delivery of 120 Commandos to the USSR.

Handed over to Soviet Senior Lt. Matveev at Ladd AAF, AK and subsequently ferried by him and his crew to Russia via the ALSIB (Alaska-Siberia) route.

Summer 1945

Submitted to the full program of flight tests, under lead test pilot P. M. Stefanovsky.

Flight tests succesful, but Lend-Lease program cancelled after VJ Day so no further orders made.

From late 1945

Used as a transport & liaison aircraft by NII VVS.

Carried test pilots to Germany and brought seized documents and parts back to the USSR.

Early 1946

Flew the Soviet Aeronautical Commission to inspect aircraft, rocket factories and research institutions in Berlin and Ribnitz-Damgarten, East Germany.

March & April 1946

Transported Arado 234 parts from Ribnitz-Damgarten, East Germany to the Soviet Union.

Fate unknown.

Right & below: 43-47271 at the Soviet Air Force Test Institute, 1945.
Photo credit: NII VVS