This installation, and the general design of the light bomber, provided the aircraft with a maximum speed of 265 miles-per-hour, a range out to 810 miles, and a service ceiling up to 25,300 feet. Rate-of-climb was 1,200 feet-per-minute. On the whole, the PZL.46's prototype proved the design sound and offered considerable advantages over the aging PZL.23 fleet.
Armament centered on a total of six machine guns: 4 x 7.92mm FK wz. 36 machine guns were in fixed, forward-firing mountings with two installed in the upper fuselage and synchronized to fire through the spinning propeller blades. The other pair was set in the wings. 1 (or 2) x 7.92mm Karabin Maszynowy Obserwatora (KMO) wz. 37 machine guns were carried on a trainable mounting at the rear cockpit. Another KMO, in a single installation operated by the bombardier, was featured at a ventral defensive station, interestingly this position being retractable (so as to preserve aerodynamic efficiency) and adding complexity to the bomber's design.
Beyond this, the aircraft was cleared to carry up to 1,325lb of conventional drop bombs under the wings.
Despite the rush to bring the PZL.46 into service, the bomber was not ready before the German invasion of September 1st, 1939. None were exported to Bulgaria from their twelve-strong order and only two flyable prototypes were ever completed for the host country. One prototype suffered undercarriage damage and remained in Warsaw while the other was relocated to Lwow on September 5th. On September 17th, this airframe escaped capture to Romania where it was interned.
On September 23rd or 26th, the aircraft was flown (under the guise that it was to be delivered to Romanian aeroplane maker IAR at Brasov) by PZL test pilot Stanislaw Riess and three other crew into the Polish capital of Warsaw, his cargo being critical Polish resistance/defense documents. From there the trio escaped capture by flying to Kaunas, Lithuania before abandoning the bomber for a ship to take them to English shores and safety. The example in Lithuania then fell to the Soviets who tested it until its usefulness was expended.
The PZL "Losos" was a related development of the PZL.46 project, drawn up by Stanislaw Prauss as a more compact version of the light bomber. Its crew was reduced to two operators and the wheeled undercarriage made wholly retractable. Beyond this, the ventral retractable gondola was deleted for simplicity's sake and power would come from a Hispano-Suiza 12Z inline piston engine offering 1,600 horsepower. The form only existed as a preliminary design and went no further.
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