Ilyushin Il-46

The Ilyushin Il-46 was a Soviet jet-engined bomber produced in 1951 and 1952 after a directive to redesign the Il-42 project, when half the drawings had already been completed. The revised specification asked for twice the range and one and a half times the bomb load, with a prototype ready for state acceptance trials in July 1952. The Ilyushin design bureau drew up a straight-wing Il-46 and a swept-wing Il-46S with as much as possible common to both, and built only the straight-wing version to keep to the schedule. It resembled a large Il-28, with a shoulder-mounted wing and a crew of pilot, navigator and rear gunner, and two Lyulka AL-5 engines in long nacelles ahead of the wing, with paired main undercarriage legs retracting into the nacelles. Flight tests and state trials were successful, but production was not ordered because the Tupolev Tu-88, the future Tu-16, performed better.