This jet was designed for mid-air collisions

How would you like to be the pilot of an XP-79 flying ram. It was built with magnesium leading edges on the wings, two turbo fans and two wing tip rocket engines to slice through enemy aircraft. Oh, yeah you also pilot it lying down. One of John K. Northrop's more unusual designs.

Northrop instead slapped on two 1,365 lbf Westinghouse J30 turbojet engines, ditched virtually all of the platform's existing weaponry, and instead armed it with magnesium-tipped wings capable of slicing through the tails and wings of enemy bombers.

Foxtrot Alpha

Aliens already did it.

Pretty crazy looking aircraft. I wonder what it would feel and sound like to slam into another plane with it. I'm sure you'll have a good conversation with yourself in your head before you slam it into another flying object lol

You gotta be a frikkun crazy MF*er to decide to ditch all your ordinance and decide. , screw it! ill ram that guy headfirst at 600 mph

a reply to: dashen

Agreed, it would take a serious huge pair to commit to diving into another aircraft like that but it was done on multiple occasions during WWII, both in the Pacific and Europe.

a reply to: Sammamishman

This looks similar to the German Horton in some respects including the pilot flying on his belly. Perhaps the allies had some of the German secrets before the war was over?

Actually, you have to wonder what promoted the idea for such a craft. Fleets of bombers by the Germans and the Japanese did not present a problem for the allies, both in Europe and the Pacific. And it would be ludicrous to think that this plane would have any other purpose than to slash tail assemblies off of big, lumbering bombers. As a fighter, you wouldn't want to literally go nose-to-nose with another fighter's machineguns, and given the smaller wing and tail areas (targets) on a highly maneuverable fighter, merely coming in at any angle and clipping the enemy fighter would be quite a challenge.

a reply to: Aliensun

Jack Northrop came up with his designs in parallel to the Horton brothers. He was ahead of them by a couple of months.

a reply to: dashen

Sonderkommando Elbe

They didn't say it, but I have this feeling that was him trying to take off on the maiden flight, when it smashed into the end of the runway, and the narrator says "With the destruction of the XP-79, Northrop cancelled development plans. " a reply to: Sammamishman

a reply to: SixX18

Yes, Harry Crosby was killed trying to bail out of the aircraft on it's maiden flight.

The pain in the neck had to be pretty bad after a few hours in that thing .

Now someone will see this for the first time and will want to make a drone out of it

a reply to: Aliensun

I can't comment on this specific plane or idea but the U.S. most certainly had some of the top German scientists and rocket makers on "our" side before the end of the war.

Nice story. But most of it is BS.

First, its a somewhat known urban myth that gets repeated in the pop-sci circles.

Second, The article is full of inaccuracies that do not make sense. For example, the wings werent "magnesium-tipped"; the whole aircrafts structure was to be made from magnesium.

Third, the whole construction doesnt make sense for a "ram-aircraft". Most glaringly, putting the pilot in the very nose and also in the prone position, which is notoriously difficult to bail out from. Also, the flying wing desing is inherently unstable and additionally would lose all control much more easily than a conventional plane AFTER an impact (which has more control surfaces and arguably better horizontal stabilization). Also, a flying wing is built for the advantages in weight and flight control. Both are probably not very interesting for a ram-aircraft.

Lastly, building a new, top of the line aircraft for the purpose of ramming is not efficient, even in military terms. In WW2, there were hundreds of obsolete models around.

In the beginning there where all these wild and for the time period advance designs, then suddenly we got a lot of boring old tech supposedly advance.

If you look at some of the design from back say 50 years ago those are just magnificent, today not so much.

originally posted by: Lonestar24
Nice story. But most of it is BS.

First, its a somewhat known urban myth that gets repeated in the pop-sci circles.

Second, The article is full of inaccuracies that do not make sense. For example, the wings werent "magnesium-tipped"; the whole aircrafts structure was to be made from magnesium.

Third, the whole construction doesnt make sense for a "ram-aircraft". Most glaringly, putting the pilot in the very nose and also in the prone position, which is notoriously difficult to bail out from. Also, the flying wing desing is inherently unstable and additionally would lose all control much more easily than a conventional plane AFTER an impact (which has more control surfaces and arguably better horizontal stabilization). Also, a flying wing is built for the advantages in weight and flight control. Both are probably not very interesting for a ram-aircraft.

Lastly, building a new, top of the line aircraft for the purpose of ramming is not efficient, even in military terms. In WW2, there were hundreds of obsolete models around.

That would be correct, sir!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner... Now I'm hungry

originally posted by: dashen
You gotta be a frikkun crazy MF*er to decide to ditch all your ordinance and decide. , screw it! ill ram that guy headfirst at 600 mph

Hey, the american military is completely nuts, i can believe it