Douglas Model 423

The Douglas Model 423 was a bomber aircraft design developed by Douglas to compete with the Convair B-36 for a major Army Air Forces contract for an intercontinental bomber in 1941. It is identified as the Douglas XB-31 in some publications, but project documents indicate that it was designed much later than the R40-B competition. In April 1941 the possibility of Great Britain falling to Nazi Germany seemed very real, and the Army Air Corps opened a competition for a long-range bomber with a range of 10,000 miles. Douglas said it did not wish to produce an out-and-out 10,000-mile airplane and instead proposed a bomber derivative of its Model 415 C-74 Globemaster heavy-lift transport as the Model 423, with a range of 6,000 miles.