Flying Wings!

The flying wing is a well known futuristic design that has been around since the earily days of Avation. It has been the subject of study and debat for many years. they reached a peek in World War 2 and then faided away for a while until the late 1970's when the USA began to develop Stealth Technology. The most notable example of a flying wing is the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit:



Another is the A-12 Avenger:



My goal is to collect on ATS a Catalog of different flying wing design that have been seen. I will take any you are willing to share including Unidentified Aircraft for which the correct designation is not known!

I believe that we might be able to dig up some unusual and even some serect projects. If you find a more unusual plane, try to post anything you can find out about it!

I would be most greatful for any help with this Effort!

Tim

[edit on 29-11-2006 by Ghost01]

The Horten brothers were some of the real pioneers of flying wing technology. They designed so many that it would be almost boring to list them all here but these two are interesting:

The Horten Ho-229 was the world first ever jet powered aircraft!


Also the Horten Parabola is an interesting flying wing design and one that doesnt seem to be very popular with designers, Im sure there is some aerodynamic reason:


Also one that everyone should recognise but maybe not everyone would call a flying wing:

Well there's a list here: en.wikipedia.org...

Some of my favorites are the Horten Ho 229, YB-35 and YB-49

The "Tarielka" (Russian for "plate")

Link

Anyone know anything about this plane??

The "Helios" UAV is sort of a flying wing. Solar powered too! Too bad its not a combat aircraft...

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by gfad
Also the Horten Parabola is an interesting flying wing design and one that doesnt seem to be very popular with designers, Im sure there is some aerodynamic reason:

Cool, where did you find out about this one? This is the first time I've seen this Horten design. It knid of reminds me of the strange crafts that Kenneth Arnald reported as UFO's in 1947.

Tim

Originally posted by gfad
The Horten brothers were some of the real pioneers of flying wing technology. They designed so many that it would be almost boring to list them all here but these two are interesting:

The Horten Ho-229 was the world first ever jet powered aircraft!

Nope, that would be the Heinkel He 178

How come the Heinkel He 178 has never been mentioned before? I've never heard of it before, and of all the time I've done surfing ATS, the net, watching documentaries; not once as the He 178 been mentioned...

Where has it been?

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
How come the Heinkel He 178 has never been mentioned before?
Where has it been?

Shattered OUT...

Hideing in plain sight! Try these threads:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Theses are just three of the threads I quickly located useing the ATS Search feature. I'm sure there are more, they just don't have HE 178 in the title. However, you are welcome to change that at any time if you wish.

Tim

Originally posted by gfad
Also the Horten Parabola is an interesting flying wing design and one that doesnt seem to be very popular with designers, Im sure there is some aerodynamic reason:

Perhaps having the outboard wing section that far behind the c.g position induces too much pitching moment when rolling. It may be the same for crosswinds, with attenuated pitching moments (as well as roll) due to the larger 1/4 chord sweep angle.


But neither of these are insurmountable problems - I don't really know why it would be considered a "flawed" concept...


[edit on 1-12-2006 by kilcoo316]

The one intresting thing about the flying wing is that is had a natural stealth quality to it. It's also very low drag, making it fuel efficient.

Kind of makes you wonder that we don't see more of them flying!

Tim

Hi!

This is a DAZI flying wing video:


www.youtube.com...

cheers,

fred

Originally posted by Ghost01
Kind of makes you wonder that we don't see more of them flying!

Structurally, its a bit of a nightmare to get an efficient pressure cabin into, and the FAA/JAA certification process would also give designers a few kittens.

A crowd of us had to do trade-off studies of various concepts ranging from a BWB to flying fuselage [nearly a re-entry vehicle kinda design], guess which came top by a long way... yeap - the cigar fuselage + 2 wings bolted on.


Depressing I know, but there it is.

Originally posted by Ghost01
The one interesting thing about the flying wing is that is had a natural stealth quality to it. It's also very low drag, making it fuel efficient.

Kind of makes you wonder that we don't see more of them flying!

Tim

The problem has always been control. Flying wings tend to be very difficult to control due to the fact that they don't have vertical surfaces... The problem with Northrop's YB-49 original wing was that. Only when fly by wire was available an actual production design was conceivable

Or the first UFO report that got full national newspaper coverage.

Now its bimbo packs in bars at 4 o' clock that fill up the NY Post pages.

It was Arnold's ufo report that started the open door on the subject

but it now appears that he saw a Horton flying wing.

So it was common knowledge that saucers did exist but never talked
about openly, the news flood gates opened until the showdown in the 50s.

What happened?

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
Or the first UFO report that got full national newspaper coverage.

Now its bimbo packs in bars at 4 o' clock that fill up the NY Post pages.

It was Arnold's ufo report that started the open door on the subject

but it now appears that he saw a Horton flying wing.

So it was common knowledge that saucers did exist but never talked
about openly, the news flood gates opened until the showdown in the 50s.

What happened?

I'm confused by this...

What exactly are you stating?

Shattered OUT...

Shatteredskies,

I think he's trying to say UFO's were big news in 1947. However, I can't see what that has to do with the topic. We were discussing different Flying Wing designs.

TeslaandLyne,

Other than you statement that Kenneth Arnold might have seen a Horton flying wing of some kind, how does your post relate to the topic of this thread?

Tim