Curtiss XBT2C

The Curtiss XBT2C was a prototype two-seat, single-engined dive and torpedo bomber developed during World War II for the United States Navy. It was derived from the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, with which it shared about half its parts, and it competed unsuccessfully for a 1945 Navy specification for one aircraft to combine the old dive bomber and torpedo bomber roles. Unlike its rivals it carried a radar operator in the rear fuselage, who worked an AN/APS-4 search radar housed in a pod under the starboard wing. Power came from a Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial engine of 2,500 horsepower, and armament was two 20 mm cannon plus a bomb bay that could hold a torpedo or bombs. The first aircraft flew on 7 August, nine were completed and delivered to the Navy in 1946, and all were scrapped in the late 1940s.