YB-49 - The Story of the Flying Wing

a reply to: FauxMulder

Yep, that's exactly the picture too..... thanks.

I think the last great technological push by the nazis' to win the war, let them push all and any tech they thought would help them in the fight. Luckily it didn't!! There flying wings were years ahead of what anyone else where flying and must off looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel back then.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

I was just asking why this topic is important. It's not too much to ask.

The topic is important to people who are interested in it. And this is a forum dedicated to it's discussion.

This particular forum contains some of the most interesting threads in the entire sight. IMO.

a reply to: dfnj2015

why not? it's an interesting subject and has a nostalgic retro-futurist vibe i, and presumably others, find appealing.

a reply to: Sammamishman



there must have been other 'flying wing' aircraft other than war-planes...civilian or scientific aircrafts I am suggesting, because in 1959 during my 5th grade year, while most kids were on summer vacation, myself and other kids were staying up late & playing outdoors near the elementary schoolyard at Hershey, PA

around 10PM that July night, I watched the approach of a band of lights in the low sky, as the seconds ticked by I could count the dull white lights in-a-row --> there were 6 lights on each side of a central & 13th light...and I immediately concluded this was the mysterious 'flying wing' aeroplane the USA was supposed to have built....my best guess is the structure was only very slightly 'V' shaped, it was twice the length of the 60ft building directly underneath it as it glided, noiselessly at a altitude which a pistol bullet would have hit it...


(To my 11 yo mind, this night flight experimental aircraft was a real machine made in secrecy) although it had no engine or propeller noise, it was gliding as fast as car traffic on a roadway, no light blinked nor were there red or green lights, just the forward 13 dull white lights...I don't recall the other eyewitness boy that also seen the flying string of lights, but he exclaimed what was that ? ...I replied it was a flying wing airplane...

a reply to: dfnj2015

Best forum on the site by a country mile. Look to the past to see the possibilities of where we may go in the future. What more can you ask for, brilliantly written threads that promote discussion and in the majority populated by some of the friendliest and most inclusive people on ATS.

a reply to: DrBobH

Absolutely! It's rare to find a forum on the net populated by people with a strong level of knowledge on a subject where even a complete newbie is treated respectfully and their questions are answered.

originally posted by: FauxMulder
a reply to: Plotus

They did continue their work undisturbed and probably better funded. It was just for the US and not the Nazis.
Operation paper clip Over 1600 german scientist were brought here.

...And according to the space museum at Alamogordo, at least three hundred rail cars of captured hardware that was shipped to White Sands. With that situation and the only nuclear weapons depot at Roswell Air Base, a short distance up the road, all good reason for visitors from afar to have an interest in the area.

Few will believe this, but in 1973, in the Chicago Museum of Modern Art there was a large, framed junk art collection that had at its center an old newspaper clipping that showed two circular craft hanging low over conifer trees in a snowy forest. The work was by an Austrian Bohemian. The work was done in 1938. You can dismiss the more recent and similar images as all fakes, but I witnessed that picture of Nazi UFOs personally.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Jack Northrop had his own flying wings in the air at the same time, as did a few others.

a reply to: Plotus

Look into the Northrop flying wings and general jet engine development. They might have been slightly ahead in deploying jet engines, but there was work on them in at least three other countries that weren't far behind. And Northrop had his own flying wings that had nothing to do with the Germans.

a reply to: Kurokage

No they weren't. The Northrop N1M flew before the Ho.229 was ever built. They had made 28 powered flights in the N1M by November 1941. The Ho.229 didn't make its first glide flight until 1944.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Just logged back in, and of course the British Jet Engine was older and more advanced than the German version so marry the two?.

Thank's for that I had no idea.

en.wikipedia.org... So Northrop was at least as much a genius as the Horton Brother's, perhaps even more so.

So actually the US was at least on a par with Germany in that research as well.



Actually I find this very heartening to know since I do genuinely hate the NAZI's.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Jack Northrop, like Kelley Johnston was way ahead of his time. He started playing with the idea of a flying wing in the 20s. His first produced design was a hybrid.

It's pretty interesting to read the history of flying wings around the world. There was a lot more work on them than people think, but they proved extremely difficult at the time. The N1M was fairly stable, but when making lateral maneuvers it had a tendency to Dutch Roll.

I love Northrop's flying wing designs, they have an eerie grace to them if you get the chance to see one fly. A B-2 sneaking up behind the airshow crowd is always a favorite but there was a few smaller prop flying wings as well. I got the chance to see one once, the M9N, and it just looks odd when flying. More like a starfighter than an airplane.

originally posted by: FredT

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: Sammamishman

Why do you post these threads?

Its an aviation forum first and foremost. Also to understand where we are now its also helpful to understand how we got here. We are fortunate to have alot of experts in the field posting in this forum. Not everybody has that level of knowledge and a few history lessons are fantastic IMHO.

More to the point there are literally 10's of thousands of threads here, my advice is to simply NOT click on ones that you think you might not enjoy.

There is another reason this thread belongs here. There are a number of persistent conspiracy theories surrounding the demise of the B-35 and B-49 flying wing programs. Most revolve around back room dealing between Convair (maker of the competing B-36) and the Air Force and particularly Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. E. g., was the loss of the last RB-49 in a taxi test the result of sabotage? And why were the remaining operational aircraft chopped up and smelted, meaning modifications to correct some yaw stability problems were no longer possible. Symington wanted Northrup to merge with Convair. Jack Northrup refused. Convair was given the contract by Symington. Shortly thereafter, Symington was hired as President of Convair.

Ho229 pre design glider.Think there was another German who did a pre war one off Flying wing design that was only discovered this past year.Designers still follow trends..Check out the 1935 Parabel design..Look familiar?
Flying Wing Platforms

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Kurokage

No they weren't. The Northrop N1M flew before the Ho.229 was ever built. They had made 28 powered flights in the N1M by November 1941. The Ho.229 didn't make its first glide flight until 1944.

I was talking about the whole combination of jet and flying wing as everyone else was experimenting (as far as I know the N-1M was an experimental prop?), Germany was trying to push everything into production, to the average aviator back then it must of looked very odd compared to what else was flying over Germany.

a reply to: Kurokage

It's always fun to see how the Germans were so far ahead of everyone. Yes they had the first with jet engines, but they made a handful of flights with it before it crashed and was destroyed. I wouldn't call that successful, or far ahead of other programs.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yes, it's true that they were not that successful but I think if they had more time to test the tech instead of being rushed into war, they may possibly have been. But I thought it wasn't till the 49' in 1947 till the combination was shown to work other than the German combo?

a reply to: Kurokage

Northrop was concentrating on large bomber designs, and the first jet engines weren't powerful enough to propel an aircraft that large and heavy. He had one or two smaller designs he could have put jets into, but one of those was designed to ram its target, destroying the prop in the process and gliding back down. It was far cheaper to use a reciprocal engine than a jet that would have had to be replaced before it could be flown again.

Even if the 229 had proven successful, they would have still been at best slightly ahead. Once the XB-35 flew that would have put them back even, or even Northrop slightly ahead, even though it wasn't jet powered. In terms of flying wings, no one was far ahead of anyone else. They were all learning as they went and encountering the same problems at about the same time in development.