The fuselages of the two aircraft were largely identical although the radar and bombing systems were located in a removable nose section as a result of the poor reliability of the B-36 installation.

For initial flight testing a more streamlined nose with an instrumented boom was fitted; a wedge-shaped insert was added just outboard of the main landing gear to increase wing sweep and the tail surfaces were swept to match.

Convair's proposal was substantially cheaper than Boeing's, since it involved modifying an existing design rather than starting from scratch.

[3] The Convair YB-60, bearing serial number 49-2676, conducted its inaugural flight on April 18, 1952, under the command of Beryl Erickson.

Modifications to the B-52, such as the "big belly" configuration, eventually raised its bomb load to 60,000 lb (27,000 kg).

Despite these challenges, Convair successfully fulfilled its prototype contract, leading to the formal acceptance of both YB-60s by the Air Force in 1954.