The Nazi Bomber Made To Destroy New York - The Horten H.XVIII 18 Flying Wing America Bomber
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 พ.ค. 2024
- Thanks to 1440 for supporting me on this video, head on over to
join1440.com/foundandexplained to support them!
Discord: / discord
New Channel: / @aviationstationyt
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @foundandexplained
Codename Amerikabomber was more than just a top secret nazi aircraft, but infact the first stage in a plan to assult and conqure the united states of america.
The inital strategy was to harrasle the population centers of the east coast, diverting US resources to home defence, and distilling the appitite for war of the american public.
The plan also included a list of 21 targets, mostly aircraft manfactores in the eastern seaboard, in an effort to ground the American airforce.
But its origins actually can be traced back before the USA was even involved in conflict, to even before the war.
According to the book Spandau, the secret diaries of Hitler by Albert Speer, the furuer was obsessed with the idea of new york in flames.
In 1937, Messerschmitt hoped to win a huge contract with the nazi government by showcasinga new plane that could reach america, the Messerchimitt ME 264.
In 1938, the luftwaffes commander Hermann Goring gave a speech highlight the lack of bomber power:
"I completely lack the bombers capable of round-trip flights to New York with a 4.5-tonne bomb load. I would be extremely happy to possess such a bomber, which would at last stuff the mouth of arrogance across the sea."
But it would only be by 1942 that the project would pick up speed.
In april of that year, a project plan called Amerikabomber was written and issued to several high ranking officers. At the time, they believed that Heinkel He 277,[5] Junkers Ju 390, and the Messerschmitt Me 264 derivative would be fine, if launched from the Azore Islands.
ut in turn, each of these aircraft was proven to be unsuitable.
The ME 264 couldn't be equipped with the required arnaments, and the other aircraft lacked the range. Although it was rumoured that the Ju 390 did actually do a test flight to america, this has never been proven.
In 1944, the RLM issued a requirement for a new type of aircraft, a stragetic bomber that had a range of 11,000 kilometers, or 6835 miles for my north america viewers, and a bombload of 4000 kg, or 8818 pounds.
This would be the perfect range for a bombing run from Berlin to say.... New York, without stopping and without refueling.
The top five germany aircraft companies got to work and submitted designs.
Unfortunately, none of these new design met the strick requirements needed,
and would force the nazis to secure the Azore Islands, stock them with a battalian and then use it as a forwarding base. A requirement that was looking increasingly more troubling with the state of the war changing under their feet.
There was a second round of revisions to come up with solutions,
but apart from flying to America, ditching the bomber and returning via submarine, there was little improvement.
But there was one team that was omitted from the selection. The horten brothers and their flying wings.
They had been omitted only because the powers that be didn't think they would be interested in bomber aircraft, focusing soley on smaller fighter planes. The german command couldn't have been more wrong.
The Hortenrs knew that they could overcome these design falires, and got to work over Christmas of 1944 concepting their new transatlandic bomber.
They cooked upa rough draft with weight calculations, fuel, crew, armaments, landing gear and bombload.
Some of these concepts had up to eight new jet engines, but they settled on six as a nice middle ground.
it would be a flying wing design, based of the engineers previous works.
Flying wings had several advantages over previous types of planes. With the entire surface area dedicated to generating lift, the aircraft could be 20-30% more fuel efficent and have a greater range. Because of its smaller cross section, the flying wing would also have a smaller radar profile, making it a world first stealth bomber. But it isn't without flaws, such as handling issues and requiring new types of engineering.
This is the brothers final design:
![Nazi Super Tank - P-1000 Ratte - [ Largest Tank EVER ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6mfhalEjUrw/mqdefault.jpg)
Loved the quick bites of news every morning. Kept me informed but without the BS! Highly recommend. Sign up today for free, and include it in your morning routine: join1440.com/foundandexplained
cool, i guess
My girlfriend lives in the açores :)
The ho 229 would have been seen by chain home radar the study gave it a 20 percent advantage over the bf109
Also the carbon in the glue wasnt helping it it made the wood more conducive and returned more not less
The air inlets gave back the biggest radar return on the Horton 229, skunk works rested a model of it.
Just some feedback about the pronunciation of Junkers its said as Yunkah
Ah, so Red Skulls Valkyrie was based upon a real Design...
Yes it was.... also remember the flying wing in "Indiana Jones and the Raiders Of The Lost Ark" ;)
Yep, as well as the huge tank his forces have in one scene
@@tylerjohn4607 yeah, I'd really love to know exactly how they managed to get a mobile land battleship working without the tesseract to power it, given we see one of the "Hydra Uber Tanks" in Norway when Redskull gets the Tesseract ( I think it might even be the same one we see Cap blow up later, but the issue with that is "how the hell did they manage to get that behemoth from Norway back into Germany...?" ),meaning that somehow Hydra figured out the hilariously absurd engineering challenges needed to get something that large to move and fight BEFORE they got the Tesseract to create essentially the energy equivalent of a nuclear reactor in a battery pack small enough to hold in your hand...
jup
Also American B2 bomber
It is funny that Ace Combat giant aircraft bosses were actually rooted in real life.
“History is more absurd than fiction because it doesn’t have to make sense” some guy idk
You fight an aircraft carrier submarine in one of them 🤷♀️
@@Jakkgusa yep that’s rooted from real life too
@@ZaHandle Yep, a real life Japanese design from back in the day. A modern one like the Scinfaxi and Hrimfaxi from Ace Combat 5 would be absurdly expensive to build, but utterly remarkable.
@@Dindyracer So, if you call Scin and Hrim absurdly expensive already, then what about the Alicorn from AC7? XD
It’s just crazy how technology leaped forward from WWI to WWII
Ikr it's really impressive
True!
Can't wait for the third season
@@cornyworks4108 *OH NO*
💀
Hortens weren't planned as stealth planes. Plywood didn't show up on radar but all the metal parts and engines were visible, even if hidden behind the plywood.
I know of the National Geographic Channels work with Northrop-Grumman but they (National Geographic) made some mistakes. You are certainly correct about the way wooden aircraft respond but the Horton Ho 229 was not an ordinary aircraft. First off all there is evidence that the Horton were trying to add stealth to the aircraft and the Germans did have excellent radar absorbers which they used on their u-boats.
1/ In 1952 Reimer Horton delivered a paper in front of an audience of the Argentinian Aeronautical Society. He spoke of the need for "radar camouflage" and how wood was a good material. It is recorded and it was delivered in front of an audience. This is before the SR-71 use of stealth or knowledge of the use of iron ball paint on the U2.
-It's worth nothing the the Germans did a great deal of research on radar cross section of aircraft from the point of view of improving radar and working our how effective aluminium foil strips they called Duppel were. When aircraft were test flown a Wurzburg-D FLAK radar was often used to track the aircraft because of its Spherical to Cartesian converter. It was found that tailless aircraft such as the Me 163 gave very low returns. So there was a appreciation that certain shapes reduced radar cross section.
2/ The Germany navy had a sophisticated and effective radar absorbers for their u-boat masts that absorbed 96% of radar waves, The code word for this program was "schornsteinfehger" which translates as "chimney sweep". It was a "Jaumann Absrober". It consisted of about 9 layers of cardboard that were made with exponentially increasing concentrations of carbon black to make the cardboard semi conducting. The cardboard was wrapped in a circle and vacuum impregnated with PVC to make it water proof and then wrapped around the u-boat mask forming a 2.5cm (1 inch) thick absorber. When a radar wave impinged it was slightly absorbed by the semi-conducting cardboard but little reflection occurred because there was no sudden increase in conductivity. The increasing conductive layers absorbed the wave much like a gently slopping pebble beach. The reflected wave was then further absorbed on the way out. Because it was optimised for 9cm radar the 1/4 wave the outgoing wave was cancelled by the incoming. It absorbed 96% at 9cm and 80% at 3cm and about 33% at 20cm.
-So the Germans in 1944 had a good radar absorber. They also had ferrite based absorbers (called Wesch) that absorbed 70% of radar waves and were formed in PVC around the top of the mast. By combining the Jaumann and Ferrite based absorber they could get 99% absorption.
3/ The Horton Ho 229 in the American Museum is a Ho 229 V3 (3rd prototype) and does not have the carbon black material in the filler. From the Ho 229 V5 onward the design and structure was to change. This is because drawings for the Jumo 004 provided to Horton didn't include an accessories gearbox forcing the design to have a thick wing roots of 15% which created a shock drag issue. This was to be solved simply by increasing the chord of the wing therefore improving its fineness. The Ho 229 was built with something similar to the Duramold process used on the Mosquito (which used balsa between two layers of plywood) and the Hughes H-4 Hercules (so called spruce goose) which used Birch instead of balsa for the filler. The Germans had no Balsa and little Birch so they used a plastic wood called Formholz made of glue and sawdust. The Version from the V5 onwards was to get graphite in the filler. Carbon Black is effectively the first nano material and would have improved mechanical properties but it also made the wing semiconducting.
4/ So all the Hortons need to do to get true stealthy was to wrap the Jaumann absorbing Schornsteighfehger on the inside of the wing leading edge instead of formholz and you have a stealth aircraft. (engine inlets was well would be needed.)
-I personally thing that the Hortons were trying to evolve stealth and that it was only a matter of time that experts from the German navy began to promote their technology for aircraft.
@@williamzk9083 This all sounds really interesting, where can I find sources for this?
Radar doesn't identify wings, only the fuselage. That's why modern stealth planes are designed the way they are. We also have advanced coatings to mitigate radar perception, so they don't have to completely remove the fuselage. But it's still mostly formatted as a wing.
This is why you need a double layer of insulating ferrite paint in order to absord radiowaves. any frequency, but stealth varies following the frequency of the radar.
what defeated the F117 was old school, lamp-powered soviet VHF radar, while the 117 was designed for battle in modern UHF/SHF radars.
as this docu explains, bureaucracy and latency of the regime made them loose the war, or if they wanted, Germany would have dropped a bunch of megatons worth of nukes on NY and Moscow, and assume superiority.
@Peter Harrell I’m sure they do and also if they didn’t why do stealth fighters have a fuselage
It's funny as a German to hear someone mispronounce every German word
spendaÜ hat mich gekilled
The "english" wasn't much better either...!!! 👌🏼 😂
MESSERMITSCH
Aranaments even!
Luft-Waffle 😂
It amazes me that even when the Soviet army was knocking on Berlin's front door, these guys still thought it was a good idea to waste time and resources trying to build a plane that would cross the Atlantic and bomb NYC.
Well at this point of the war the American's where the Nazis main enemy mainly because of the Americans logistics and industry. If the Nazis where able to take out many of the U.S factory's then that would seriously help them with the war and then be able to take there eyes off of the Americans and British so they could fight the communists. Plus the U.S was also giving many trucks jeeps and other vehicles to the British and Russians. Bombing the American factory's would cripple the allies even at the ending time of the war.
@@ihavenomindandimustthink No by around 1943 - 1944 the Soviets had their factories in the Urals up and running producing way more war material then the Axis. Plus it would not make much of a difference in the larger picture since Germany were so outnumbered by that time and most of their veteran and well equipped divisions were severely crippled, from a lack of resources, material, manpower and exhaustion. Another thing to consider was that the US were not the Nazis worst enemy it was the Soviet union which outnumbered hugely. A total of 34.4 million men had served the red army throughout the war, while Germany had 13.6 million from 1936 - 1945.
With tanks and armored vehicles Germany produced around 46 thousand tanks, while the SU produced around 119.8 thousand tanks and they had oil for them as well.
I know the SU got a lot through lend lease but it was not enough to say that Germany would be the victor on the eastern front. It would have dragged the war on for longer sure, but the German logistics in the USSR was a nightmare for them plus they were outnumbered from the get go, with losses meaning a much greater deal for them compared to the Soviets which could easily replace them.
If you were in Germany at the time your first concern was not to be sent to the front for active duty. So coming up with a potentially useful project could save your ass. Look at the engineers who worked on the silly 3m gauge railway. No one in his right mind would think that was feasible nor good engineering. It just catered to Hitlers crave for being great. Very useful to get one out of trouble (service at a dangerous place) until it was over.
@@mikkel066h while the SU had way more people, America and mainly the company GM was the reason the war was being won by the allies. GM supplied the majority of the Trucks to America, the UK, France, and even the SU. Even before officially joining the war America was sipping war supplies to Britain. While battles were won by tanks and weapons, GM trucks are what got those weapons and supplies to the location to win the war.
Texts describe Hitler being amazed by the sheer amount of GM trucks there were. Because of this, having the ability to halt American production would have been one of the most helpful things Germany could have done.
The importance of Trucks for transportation becomes even more apparent when you consider that the Nazis were using horses to transport a large portion of their supplies to where they were needed. Gas shortages also contributed to the difficulty of transportation. Means of transportation is what ultimately wins wars.
@@Cyramor11 Even if the Germans developed the bomber and could reach the US. The bombings would still not have enough of an effect to make a difference. They first of lacked the fuel to do sorties at that distance, the bombers would not have fighter cover (I know they are jet bombers and all but they could still be reached for a single pass by P51's and their altitude). They did not have enough material to build and sustain a bomber fleet of that magnitude to cripple the US infrastructure. We even see that with Germany being bombed. It took thousands of bombers and years to cripple the German production of war material.
And year the US lend lease to the SU played an important role but not a defining factor as many believe it is. So let's look at some statistics.
GDP of the USSR from 1941 - 1945 in Billions USD $
USSR: 1643 b $ = 95%
Lend lease value to USSR: 82 b $ 5%
So the lend lease only accounted for 5% total value. If we look at the trucks the USSR had 961000 at the start of 1941 but lost a good chunk of them had a total of 554000 thousand total in 1st of Jan 1942.
However at the end of 1942 they had 584k in trucks and 33.5k imported trucks. Which is about 5% of their total truck fleet which is made of imported trucks from the US. And at that stage in the war Stalingrad was already surrounded and the 9th army is about to surrender.
At the battle of Kursk in 1943 US lend lease trucks made up of 15% and in 1945 30%.
Another thing to look at is all the other war material such as tanks and planes. And the trend of those values goes for that lend lease tanks never covered for more then 10% of total tanks for the USSR from 1942 - 1945. And lend leased planes made no more then 15% of total planes of the USSR from 1942 -1945.
There is no area in which the USSR were not able to produce equipment, and in absolutely gigantic quantities. Jonathan House, David Glantz, T. Davies, Alexander Hill and many other military historians who have looked at various battles and the war as a whole, agree with me that the USSR would almost certainly have won without lend-lease
It’s so funny how people will look at a flying triangle and immediately assume it’s a stealth bomber just because it’s shape took after the most stealthiest creation of mankind ever: the dorito
Have you seen B-2 stealth bombers?
@@Artifex422 flying wings are a common idea. Fucking kites are flying wings
Ikean dorito fighters 💀
Can you put a link?
Imagine seeing these things flying into new york sky scrapers back in WW2 woulda been insane to see.. These compared to other countries fighter jets is unbelievable
I can deal with bad pronunciation.
But I just can't deal with "Messermitch". lol
Yeah, it's almost better than luch-waffles. Maybe try "Luftwaffle" - who doesn't like an airy fluffy waffle!? 😊
The problem is TH-cam algorithms look for any Nazi era/war/holocaust names/references to activate demonitizing. Slightly modified pronunciation prevents this.
@@2000Ajjet The nazis could only dream of tools like TH-cam algorithms. Beats book burning any day of the week.
@@2000Ajjet So the Word "Nazi" is a no problem, but "Luftwaffe" is?
I was the same, adding Junkers to Messermitch
When you realize captain America stopped a prop version of this
I think it had both jets and props for some reason
@@urpapastalin6315 it had two jets and eight manned bombs, which had giant propellers themselves which jettisoned with the bombs, which would eventually leave the plane itself with just the two jets
I think The First Avenger plot was more plausible than this guys story. Tailless aircraft need computers to compensate for their inherent unstablity. No jet engine of the time would function long enough make the trip one way. The jet engine of the time wasted gas and the plane couldn't be big enough to get anywhere. It would take so much material to build that Germany couldn't have sacrificed that much aluminum. So a giant plane powered by space magic would be far more likely to succeed.
The justice league stop the exact same plane way before captain america did (2004 justice league animated)
@@jasonrhodes9683 The Hortens had a few tricks up their sleeve regarding wing twist and shape that reduced the sort of pitch and yaw instability that the Northrop XB-35, and YB-49 had, but it would remain to be seen whether this would have worked well enough. The Jumo engines certainly would have been inadequate, anyway. The HO229 flying wing fighter supposedly was an OK gun platform, though it crashed before it had been thoroughly tested- and then the war ended.
I've never understood why they are called "parasitic" aircraft.
A parasite is an organism that feeds off of another organism without departing any benefit to the host, and usually damaging the host.
I would think these aircraft should be called "symbiotes", as a symbiote is connected to a different organism for mutual benefit.
I guess they are parasitic in that sense that they add weight, take up space, add drag to the carrier plane.
Like a leech, they "suck" out all tactical practically from a typical bombing operation
I never understood why people on the internet choose to be pedantic know-it-alls over petty details like this. It's such a cheap way to pretend you are more intelligent then you actually are.
@@MrRobarino I've never understood how despite someone making a valid point that another person would get offended for no good reason and decide to be a bitch about it on the internet. If you've passed 4th grade you would know of the meaning parasite and symbiote. He wasn't saying anything smart it was just an observation you dunce.
I never understood why people attack others for simply asking a question. It’s actually fairly interesting, and makes you think “yeah, why did they name it that? Surely there’s a reason for it” but you’re probably the kind of person to criticize anyone who tries to think about the world differently than you
@@MrRobarino So hostile for no reason
Really good topic. After hearing so much of the same about the WWs, this is refreshingly fresh, deeper knowledge content. I learned a few new things 🙏🏾
In German, the “J” in Junkers is pronounced “Y”. So Junkers is actually pronounced like “Yunkers”. Just FYI.
I took German back in college during the late ⏰ 1980’s and said the same thing to myself. Thank you 🙏 for pointing that out 😎
Yeah, this channel is really unprofessional.
And it also hurts me how he pronounces Messerschmitt, even though I don't speak German. Yes, I'm that funny guy at parties, who tell everyone, to pronounce the names correctly :P
In Poland, lots of people have problem with Lamborghini, pronouncing it as Lamborgene, with the G, like G-unit. Same with Ghia.
I hope I'm not the only one :' )
Did no one notice Spand a ooo pronunciation? Spandau! SPANDOW! Sigh
Iam german and very confused
"I completely lack the bombers capable of round-trip flights to New York.." Goering sounds like a businessman who is worried he might not make it in time for that New York meeting.
And you for spelling Goering correctly
Goering might have been looking to offer a breakthrough bomber to the Americans to allow for longer range bombing runs to Japan from say Australia or Hawaii if aircraft carrier bombers could not do the damage either. Plus Hitler was always into wunder weapons even if he was traditional in his views (better battleships/wonder tanks and rockets vs better submarines/jet fighters/bombing UK airport fields)
\
@@hughbarton5743 fat hermann
Göring
I was thinking about the arsenal bird from Ace Combat throughout the entire video. I'm glad you made the same parallel
The Arado 234 incorporated JATO (jet assist take off) rockets. The rocket powered ME 163 had disposable wheels for takeoff and a metal skid for use on landing so both of these options were realistic, proven solutions. In 1947 Northrop built the YB-49 flying wing which was very similar to the concept shown here except it was propeller driven. Without the vertical stabilizer or computer assisted stability aids, it was very difficult to fly safely.
The YB-49 had Jet engines, the YB-35 had props
Do you know that Jack Northrop built a device that solved the stability issue? He called it "Little Herbert." Do some research.
@@user-cy5li2zp9z It helped, but did not solve all of the problems. Did the research.
"The Fuhrer was obsessed with the idea of New York in flames"
The dude had lots of passions for sure.
Burning passion that is
In some respects it was Hitlers lack of focus that slowed the NAZIS down enough for us to beat
all he had to do was wait 80 years and it would happen all on its own
He wasn't a very nice person
@@jamesnoord6295 even if he wasn’t methed out they would’ve lost
Yes there are a lot of mistakes in the way I pronounce these german words. This video was recorded at the same time as the last one. Moving forward I'll pay more attention.
"Azores" (the islands) is not a "german word." You need to check on how to correctly pronounce that word too.
You need to more thorough research all together. Or atleast learn the word "Supposedly"
By no means were Hortons stealth aircraft, even a little research will show you that myth came many years later from the Horton brothers in order to secure jobs with somewhat worked.
And this plane almost certainly wouldnt last long. Jet engines weren't good enough back then to push it beyond what a interceptor would be capable of due ti its massive size, to out run the latest American interceptor it would likely start ripping unless it was made of steel, which is very unlikely.
Yes, I don't speak German and I'm quite confident you don't either lmao. Cool planes though!
I'd be happy to help you with German pronunciations. Probably the only part of four years spent in German classes that I can actually use.
It wasnt invicible to radar :) Horten claimed they made the Ho 229 to be made of materials that can absorb radar but there hasnt been any evidence for this , not in the surviving plane nor for the planned flying wing bomber
Interesting. Thx for sharing!
Watching from Ontario Canada 🎉
Just because the Horten looks like a B2 doesn't mean it was stealth. It was perfectly detectable on RADAR.
U had a dogfight with him i guess
"So guys, what should we code name our top secret project of bombing America"
"Umm... *Amerika Bomba"*
I don't know why he stressed the K part this much... The project was called "Amerika Bomber" which is simply german for "america bomber" the continent is called Amerika in german
Putting a K in it makes it German, which allows this voiceover guy to mispronounce it.
Garunteed complete BS just like all other WW2 stories
German moment, I wonder why it never panned out for them.
@@MartinInBC "Messermitch"
1940s Arsenal Bird "Exist"
1940s Trigger "My time has come"
Just wait until the 1940s alicorn
@@Highrollerpersa
Hey submarine carriers existed during the time. Japan made them. The trick is trying to fit a Schwerer Gustav on a big one.
1940's Princess Cossette:
1940s Captain Torres:
1940's Bandog:
What a fascinating airplane! Could you pleeease produce a video about the aerodynamics and other brilliant engeneering of the B-2?
I'm so glad you actually referenced Operations Paperclip .😁👍
Never-built aircraft always seems to be able to do the most impressive things...
Well aside from the "stealth" claims, it really seems quite plausible that it would be able to cross the Atlantic. Maybe just not with a full payload.
@@justsam100 A true flying wing design is inherently harder to detect than the standard design. And that effect would only be amplified by the early versions of radar.
Hence why they're never built
Ofcourse! They can do anything because of never-built technology!
Now we have the b2 spirit bomber which is basically just this but better in nearly every way.
"Undetectable by radar?" No. I would likely to have been difficult to detect but not impossible. Later in the video, it mentions a small radar cross section. But since the aircraft was never built, it would all be conjecture based, presumably on the Northrup flying wing designs. By the way; F & E fails to mention the yaw instability and evil stall characteristics of the YB-49. It took computer controlled, fly by wire technology to make the B-2 viable. And a lot more than the flying wing design gave the aircraft stealth capability.
Yeh, the title is kind of clickbaity since it never was made and just (AFAIK) a conceptual design. Also, isn't one of the main reasons the B2 is stealthy due to it having special radar absorbing paint? I know the F117 Nighthawk had special paint and a very angular design that made it stealthy (although one has been shot down over Bosnia IIRC).
This guy really knows his stuff
The only thing it has going that would make its radar cross section smaller is not having a rudder assembly.
IIRC the plane had a lot of steel pieces in the middle, and the exposed jet engines dead center wouldn't have helped either. (Plus, radar absorbent materials, reduction of creeping wave return, shielding the cockpit interior, etc...)
If I recall correctly, the Hortens used bell shaped wingtips which alleviated most of the issues with instability and flying wings. However, the shape of the B-2's wings had to be angular at the wingtips, which is more likely why it needed the FBW. Not saying the Ho-229 or the H. XVIII would have been easy to fly by any metric, but I'm just saying they had some measures to control that hopefully. Of course, if the tail was added to the H. XVIII like the committee wanted, I think it would be more manageable.
Though yes, it does have a reduced cross section, the work done by Lockheed when they replicated it and put it on a test stand proved that. However, you are right that it wasn't invisible like stealth designs today. I believe they said it would have given them a two and a half minute warning rather than seven minutes from a normal fighter? It's been a while since I watched it, so don't quote me on that.
@@DonVigaDeFierro - Relocating the intake openings would have helped too.
The Horton brothers developed their first flying wing as a glider in the early 1930s. And they built it in their parents living room. As all doors were to small to get the plane out they broke a hugh hole in a wall. Than the travelled by train to the Wasserkuppe mountain to take part in a glider competition which the won. As they had no money for a return ticket they burned their plane. Here on TH-cam is a video available which shows a test flight of the Horton HO-2 glider 1935 in Cologne. The HO-2 was the next version of their flying wing.
Germany: Its top secret
Also Germany: Code-names it "America-Bomber"
none of the hortens were planned to be "stealth" only years later we come up with that because this design reduces the radar by accident not by reason.
...correct...
...the stealth qualities of the Horton flying wings are an artifact of design, and not an intent or purpose of design...
Accidental inventions still count.
@@heroinboblivesagain5478 you dont get the point. the nazis didnt know about the radar reduction by design. and its not an invention. its logic. less side-surface less radar-signal. there was nothing like an invention.
@@esci85 TIL any accidental discovery doesn't count because nobody "knew" about it.
@@heroinboblivesagain5478 and again. It Wasnt an invention. What Did they invent?
It Was an effect. Only fanboys like you are pushing that to some Kind of.
I absolutely love how alien stealth bombers look. Especially this one.
this one is not a stealth bomber
It's not a stealth bomber
It was said that it would be invisible to radar in the video so it may as well have been a stealth bomber.
Stealth technology or knowledge of it didn’t really exist at all back then
@@PlayBoX-qq9kr people tested this thing irl, it wasn't a stealth bomber in function or in design. it was stealthier but not designed to do that
The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
Top speed: 594 mph
Range: 999.8 mi
Introduced: 1945
Wingspan: 39′ 0″
Engine type: Jet engine
First flight: January 8, 1944
Manufacturer: Lockheed Corporation
I think the reason the Horten brothers weren’t paperclipped was because of Jack Northrop. Mr. Northrop was also a nut for flying wings and his designs at that point weren’t very successful. So the Americans probably thought “We don’t need two more Northrops running around.”
Theres an alternate-universe version of me who goes to a museum and sees this, the X-49, and the G-10 Fuugaku
G-10 Fuugaku is basically a more traditional version of the B-36 Peacemaker, sans extra jet engines.
The reason they started to use wood by the end of the war was not to reduce radar signals but is simply the effect of Germany running out of materials. Same with the Heinkel HE-162, they needed wooden airframe aircraft because they were easy to build and used materials Germany still could muster. But there was a huge problem for the Germans using wood for airplanes. The British managed to create the Mosquito because they managed to create glue strong enough. The Germans could not manage to manufacture industrial glue strong enough and this is why the HE-162 also had a lot of trouble with wings breaking off because lack of glue strength. So a huge plane with lots of fuel and heavy engines and a bombload was something the Germans would never be able to build without glue strong enough. Also the USAAF was already experimenting with flying wings independent of the Horton brothers in 1942 and flying wing designs already were used in 1910.
Jack Northrop had been flying flying wings since the late 1920s. Many others had experimental gliders and designs on paper for flying wings, so not a new idea. Still a bold design, just like Northrop's.
I've heard that too about the supply shortage and the glue strength and breaking wings
@@lookoutforchris Check out the Dunne Flying Wing from 1911 onwards ...
@@alfnoakes392 I'll still give it Northrop for building the first practical and usable flying wing.
Though that is still impressive
"The Germans could not manage to manufacture industrial glue strong enough"
What, not enough horses?
.
[ducks, bobs, weaves, and scampers off stage far left]
I am very interested in learning about weapons in World War II. Thank you for providing this video. it's very interesting
It is very interesting to see that Northrops Bombers in the late 40's and 50's are looking like Horton planes. Even the B2 has so much similarities with this concept.
Wonder who came up with those.....
What are you talking about? Jack's designs came before the ho 229 came around, in the 30s and 40s. The B-2 came directly out of the xb49. The wingspan of the B2 is proof of that.
Problem: the German jet engines at the time had a time between overhauls that was shorter than the flight time for a bombing run to New York.
Hahahahahaha...good "detail", hahahahaha
Well that's what you get when you have corporal running the military. Also imaginary aircraft can do anyting. I'm glad Hitler did not wait two year before he started world war II.
Good ol German reliability..
@@manz7860 that is what we're programmed to believe. That is true in many respects.
If German gets back to trying to make these, feel free to fly them over to Detroit, Chicago, and most of Cali and let loose with those bombs baby.
Stability issues on theses early flying wing designs were terrible. Nowadays military planes uses onboard computers to stabilize the plane's flight continuously but back in thoses days, it was impossible. I understand why external engineers redesigned this plane in a more conventionnal way even it made it less fuel efficient. What's the point of a bomber that can fly to New York, if it crashes when meeting too much wind or making a too quick change of direction ?
Germany would send a hundred of them across the Atlantic to bomb New York
They would all crash before they got halfway across the Atlantic
The Horten 229 managed to be more stable tanks to it's lift curve
Yeah, I still don't get how flying wings managed to keep their yaw under control. Every flying wing I've built in KSP simply spins out of control.
@@carlramirez6339 gotta be careful with flying wings, but they're certainly possible in ksp
Northrop Y b 35 and Y b 49 ... hold my beer...
about the radar properties of the craft. lets say that the B2 is somewhere in the ball park of half that things size. even with modern coating and advancements in the material sciences you can still see a B2 with radar. you may be able to mistake it for a small fighter of some sort rather then a bomber but you can still see it. so imagine the cross section of a craft around 2 times the size, but only working with wood and a charcoal based paste to "absorb" radar. even if it is just a rudimentary radar system, you can still detect things as small as large birds. there is no way you are missing this thing on a radar screen. you may possibly mistake it for a large bomber of smaller dimensions then the real craft or maybe even a medium bomber. but you are going to see it regardless.
Very interesting video guys. Thanks!
An old flight simulator, "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe", had this plane as an option to fly.
I remember that, incredible game for that time.
Deserves a XXI century version.
I have it. Shows it on the box
George lucas had a hand in that i think
Fun game. I loved flying B-17 bombing runs
The SPAN-DA-YU had me laughing so hard HAHAHAHA
messer-mitch wasn´t bad either
I liked Djunker..
Arnaments...
Sounds like Yoda’s cousin…
Give the guy a break, he is just like everyone else in Britain: sits at home on the dole, reads a Wikipedia article, and overlays D grade stock footage
6 of the same engines on the me 262, nice 👌
Loved the quick bites of news every morning.
The Horten 18B-2 was the last variant and also selected by Goering himself. The design is pretty well known, as opposed to what is said in the video. The second version, with the huge vertical stabillizer was rejected and was not meant to be built.
Yay, Arsenal Bird future video hahahaha
Would love it for sure, Ace combat license has such incredible plane designs you could maybe explore !
Great video as always 😊
yes
“Spanda-eww” lol😂
And then at 2:08 he really mumbled out “Luf-WAFFLE”
Looks like a spirit bomber with a avro Vulcan fused together
The b-2 spirit was developed by the makers of the yb-49 Northrop Grumman, and Northrop corporation, American aerospace manufacturer(s) who specialized in fly-wing designs. the reason why the 2 brothers were not extradited was due to the fact they only had prototype blueprints and a destroyed prototype (made out of wood) that was extradited as a part of operation paperclip. The notion that the Horton brothers "inspired" the design of the B-2 spirit is the biggest myth in all of WW2 aviation history as the design of they yb 35 went all the way back to the early 40's
One of the reasons the American weren't interested in them is that they were cranks.
nice try son
@@saadman920 What are you talking about?
Horten's first planes were gliders designed in 1933 and they were on the all wing design rather early. IDK if they inspired the YB35 though. Kinda hard to be inspired by secret prototypes where only a handful of them exist.
@@Dragonette666 All wing gliders are probably the earliest form of any "aviation" tech and date back way before the early 1900s. It's like me folding a paper plane and speculating if the F-35 wasn't secretly inspired by it.
The northrop b2 was the final realization of Jack Northrop's flying wing designs that first flew in1929. Northrop proselytized flying wings all the way into the 1950s and flew bomber versions for the us air force. The tailess flying wing designs were just too hard to fly safely without modern (c1970s) flybywire computer assist.
I disagree with you, the bomber was stable when flown whithin the rather narrow CG envelope . The problem was the combination of rear CG limit and post stall recovery technique, which caused the death of Edwards due to unarrested pitch rate. Only at very high altitude
( Low IAS but high True airspeed) a yaw damper is needed to damp the Dutch Roll oscillation, as is the case with highly swept wings (Boeing 747)
The Horten's build their first flying Wing as a glider in the early twenties as well. Interesting concept at this time, in Germany they were pioneers and I think they even tested one glider at the Wasserkuppe, that's a famous gliding hill. I remember I've seen a picture how they build one glider all through their parents flat with one wing in the living room xD
@@maxmeesters5649 The Horton brothers were born in 1913 and 1915, they were children in the early 1920's. They didn't build their first glider until 1933 which itself was based upon Alexander Lippisch's designs. Jack Horton had been conducting powered flights with tailless aircraft since 1928.
*_"The tailess flying wing designs were just too hard to fly safely without modern (c1970s) flybywire computer assist."_*
That is simply _wrong._ Tailless aircraft have been around for a long time.
@@thethirdman225Tailless AND Flying Wing.
Anyone ever play the iFighter game app?
The boss at the end of Mission 8 (and the game, really) is a fictionalized version of this.
It has trailing edge AAA and these flying "sky mines" (for lack of a better description).
When you defeat all those, two laser cannons come out of the top it's nuts.
That game really went the extra mile with not only depicting real aircraft accurately, but also researching the hell out of experimental wunderwaffen that were actually on the drawing boards but heavily classified until long after the war.
Me-262 Schwalbes and 163 Komets are recurring enemies, as are several flying wing enemies that closely resemble a few of the planes shown here.
Spoiler/Easter egg alert:
The boss at the end of Mission 5 is the flying wing from Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
So cool.
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is an old game, but represents this kind of scenario really well.
Ace combat in 1940s timeline lol
And that's what V2 is for.
Belkan technology at it's finest
That would be a lit spinoff
Ace Combat Genesis doesn't sounds like a bad title for the new project
Jokes aside I would really like an AC game set in the 60s or before.
Piloting the F-86, the MiG-15... That would be dope.
I always thought that captain America:first avenger was a lie. I didn’t know it had some basis?
The ho18 didnt have a hanger for micro fighter's
Horten brothers had virtually no funding, this video really overdramatized the whole thing
@@CRJCrombo - also it was Christmas 1944. By that time Germany couldn't build much of anything. Germany had lost its airbases in France, which would have made bombing the USA even more difficult (a longer flight, with the need to cross Allied-controlled France both ways). Even if the bomber could actually have outrun Allied fighter aircraft (doubtful, given the unreliability of German jet engines at the time - losing an engine or two would slow the bomber down), there were still Allied anti-aircraft guns with VT (proximity) fuzed shells that had proven effective at shooting down V-1 flying bombs. By that point in the war Allied fighter-bombers were roaming across Germany with near impunity. They could have wrecked any German airbase that housed such enormous bombers, or caught the bombers on their vulnerable takeoffs and landings.
This airplane belongs in an alternate history scenario where for example the UK or USSR or both get knocked out of the war early, and Germany is able to focus completely on the USA. In the actual history this thing is pure fantasy.
Yeah that was a extremely more advanced version of this one because it was propped driven and also Jet propelled for supersonic flight. The one on Captain America was even pressurized so we can fly at extremely high altitude. I know we're fairly good amount of history about it because a friend of mine build a flying RC version of the Nazi wing. You breathe on it wrong and it would fall apart though. The one in Captain America honestly was cool as hell but when I looked up the schematics of that that kind of tech would be around till the mid-sixties I don't think. I think they did a pretty good job a
on Captain America. Too bad he did not know how to work the Tesseract cuz he could have just opened the portal to New York drop some bombs and then walked right back to the portal or flown back through one
@@TrccrT I forgot about that no it did not! That was a cool addition to the movie. I don't remember why he had to crash the thing! If he would would have just crash-landed it they could have saved his life not to mention reverse-engineer the technology from the airplane
it is equally amazing and frightening to see how far the germans were at the end of ww2, wich always brings up the question what if the war didn’t happen… A 1950 Superpower with an arsenal of jet fighters, stealth bombers, nuclear bombs, the best submariens, battleships and tanks.
This is pure bullshit, they were never that far, they just rushed every tech they have, the British and American already has similar weapons and machines like super heavy tanks, jet planes, radars and others, they just don't even needed it
This was also done simukar way in captain America the first avenger, even stopped and prevented completely years ago
my personal favorite "Cameo" is the Red Skull plane. so many interesting features from different projects and designs
Spandau ('span-dow')
Messerschmitt ('mess-er-sh-mit')
Goerring ('gerr-ring')
Junkers ('yoong-kers')
These won't sound exactly like actual German pronunciation, but they will sound near enough to the actual words to be recognisable.
No its spen da you
dont forget his famous luft-waffles (its pronounced luhft-vaffa btw)
@@stefankrstevski1507 mah that’s a W not a v
@@lucaschneider1613 no its pronounced like jay wrote, source: im german, @jay it´s göring, he only has one r in his name
He literally said Messer Mitch lmao 🤣
Would you ever consider covering the Ju 290 and maybe the 390?
I don't think we'll be able to go any further without another big war.
I can see why the engineers would have trouble signing of an aerodynamically unstable aircraft at the time. Now it wouldn't be any problems since we have more sophisticated electronic control. But that thing would probably have been a pain to fly manually.
Looks like the small one actualy took off and flew well, impressive
The Horten Designs were aerodynamically stable. The smaller H IX Jet flew in 1945, and they also built a few very successful Gliders in the 1930ies.
The reason no nation has a fling wing in use, until the 21 century, was because it was very unstable to fly until today's technology.
Nick should do a video series of him reacting to fictional movie planes and see how possible they are in real life
**wink wink nudge nudge** *Arsenal Bird*
Lockheed CL-1205
What about the Alicorn (it's probably the most plausible ac super weapon)
*cough cough* Aigaion
what about tanks as well? They would be awesome!
Ace Combat 7
its funny to think about how innovative the Germans really were. they really pushed the boundaries in WWII. Kind of makes me wish they were able to stick around longer just to see what else could have been created. Its also interesting to know that they have had the smartest individuals working for them (willing or not) to create all what they have.
*_"its funny to think about how innovative the Germans really were. they really pushed the boundaries in WWII."_*
The _Wunderwaffe_ weapons of WWII were more a hindrance than a help. The Nazis didn't listen to the army so they ended up with monster tanks they couldn't use. The jets were rushed into service before they were reliable enough and a lot of their on-paper ideas were echoed in the West anyway.
*_"Its also interesting to know that they have had the smartest individuals working for them (willing or not) to create all what they have."_*
Looked at critically - even by German historians such as Bernhard Kast and Chris Bergs - the idea of 'German genius' doesn't have much going for it. If you want to see this, have a look at their attempt to copy - I mean a complete replica - the De Havilland Mosquito and ask yourself why they couldn't do it.
@@thethirdman225I’m not very educated on this subject but from my very basic knowledge Germans did have some fantastic engineers. Why else would they extradite thousands of their scientists in operation paper clip ? Nazi engineering practically put America on the moon. Some of the engineering designs are amazing but lucky for us they didn’t have a surplus of appropriate materials.
@@thethirdman225 We also had plenty of groundbreaking technology on the Allied side that won the war, but nearly fictional vehicles are "cooler"
@@danielmolinar8669 Looking carefully at that I’d say that technology was not a factor in winning WWII. WWII was won by ordinary people with mainstream conventional weapons and not with or by high technology. I think most people would agree that Germany had more high tech weapons than the Allies did yet the Allies prevailed with equipment that was good enough.
Technology is either there or it isn’t. In the end, real wars are a battle of industrial economies.
oh i love the ace combat reference at 14:30. That gave me a good laugh.
Horton 18 doesn’t make it into service: OH NO!
Lives on in the B-2 bomber: *Anyway*
Horten’s planes have nothing to do with the B-2
@@bop3752 Operation paperclip
@@theenchiladakid1866 Northrop had their own flying wings far before the 229 even flew
@@bop3752 I know, but I’m quoting Nick where he said “we might as well say the Horton spirit lives on”
@@bop3752 Dude if that was true you could prove it with facts. Meanwhile you cannot even end sentences yet. Failed 1st grade? Now a declassified document by the U.S goverment we can proof read and contains historical facts. So you are going with ... unfounded Nazi propaganda?
1:45 the book Span-da-you LOL HAHA
They were on their way to New York, but the pilot of The Horton heard a Who and flew off to investigate. True.
B-2 is based on the Northrop design YB-49 from the 50s. And actually has the exact same wingspan.
As a german i found it so dumb that they all try to connect it to the horton. Usa did id also and was maybe even ahead.
Contrary to what the History Channel might tell you (shocking, I know) the Horten Brothers were unaware of any stealthy consequences of their designs (and given the steel tube construction and wooden skins, they definitely were not).
Reimar Horten appears to have invented the story with several verifiably false claims 30 years after the fact to try and gain some publicity and money. The Smithsonian had a dig around for the carbon-based glue for instance, and found it to be false.
I'm not sure even Reimar Horten went around claiming that, it appears the British author that wrote their book in the eighties is the only source for it
Never trust the Smithsonian. They hide giant bones. And other ancient relics
They actually did a special that proved that the Horton Flying wing that wound up at the Smithsonian was "invisible" to radar of the day the test stand model is in the air museum in sandiego
@@wayneminert6277 They found (without engines, armament, or the sort) it's RCS was between 20% and 40% less than a 109. More so because of size and wooden construction. Nothing intentional.
@@peterson7082 The 109 is drastically smaller however, while the shape wasn't chosen for stealth, this fact should not be omitted.
If I saw test flights of that plane as a civilian, there would be no doubt in my mind that I just saw a UFO in 1942.
0:10 One of the Horten brothers did claim to know about stealth technology, and provided an example of something they did to decrease the radar signature, however it was later proven that he was lying, and this example actually increase radar signature
There‘s another documentary about this plane and how engineers from Northrop Grumman were building a modell from pieces and paperworks the US-Army found in Germany. It proved that the plane hat a significantly lower radar Signatur and alarm time for the British attacked by Hortens planes would have been only 8 minutes instead of 25 min. So they easily could have destroyed the radars at the British coast.
@@axwest1it had a lower signature but it’s not a stealth plane
It was partially wood and that charcoal paint/glue whatever it was don’t help it
Arsenal Bird like from Ace Combat 7? Damn, it would be great if you made a video analyzing that fictional aircraft.
The Horten brothers HO 229 and H18 along with Northrop XB-35 & XB-49 were the first flying wing aircraft
@@Attaxalotl Northrop's ww2 flying wings included two strategic bombers, 1 flying wing ramming aircraft and 1 or 2 flying wing fighter
@@Attaxalotl couldn´t find infos about the D4 but the D5 was a biplane, does it really count as flying wing? airbus should finally make a flying wing or blended wing passenger aircraft, the fuel savings would be enormous
Westland hill pterodactyl 1A
@@fritzfieldwrangle-clouder7299 ?
@@Humbulla93 Boeing had a passenger flying wing paper concept going for the longest time, the only reason there isn't any flying wing passenger planes is because the runways aren't big enough for them. A B-2A /B-21 takes 95% of the runway to lift off with full load of ordnance and fuel
the way he pronounced spandau made me cry
Wow great codename, Allies never would have been able to figure out what this was about.
"The time has come,Mr. Devlin,when I no longer control events.
They control me". Oberst Kurt Steiner
After the focus on the Horten 229 I hoped this would be covered also :) Another Luftwaffe design I liked was the Junkers EF.132
EF 132 is the concept of B-52, and Reimar Horten aid the people of northtrop to make de desing of B-2
@@pablo-iu3lv Neither of those statements is correct.
@@Hunter12396 there are documents presented by Reimar Horten's son that for at least a month the staff of the company that "designed" the B-2 met with Horten on the subject of the aircraft concept.
@@pablo-iu3lv Based on what exactly?
0:53 lmao, nice puddle in the background 😅
(Also, your production quality is looking outstanding!)
Its a picture.
Arsenal Bird... with parasite fighters , Great name!... too bad already done by ace combat 7 a few years ago
Imagine US citizens going crazy thinking aliens bombed them 😂
That's how I imagine Roswell happened.
US found one or two working prototypes, hauled them back, checked them over, did a test-flight, something went wrong, aircraft crashed, and the unfamiliar design made it look more like a spaceship than an aircraft.
Probably didn't happen, but if something like the Ho 229 had crashed on some farm, I can see it turning into the barn scene from Back to the Future.
@@Azzameen99AZ I mean to say we capped one in secret is not that far fetched look at the YB-49, YB-35, XB-35. Even just having the plans could have helped the above programs alot.
Nothing funny.....
If your in WW2. You gonna laugh people died for they're country.
No because without sacrifice we will be never get new gadget
But, I wouldn't call those gadgets, I would rather call them WMD
@@andrewyork3869To say the YB-35 (XB and YB are the same thing) and YB-49 is related to the Ho-229 is almost an insult to Jack Northrup. Jack spent his entire life making a flying wing since the Horten brothers were teenagers starting in the 1930s with the N1M. He and the Horten brothers wouldn’t have known that the other existed and saying they were copied is just plain false.
I get really scared when an "educational" video about WW2 planes mispronounces everything. It really undermines any research the creator might have done, and it just seems like slick footage added to a Wikipedia article.
I mean come on, it is not that hard to Google how to pronounce Messerschmitt or Junkers...
Literally only germans care how its pronounced, nobody else gives a crap.
@@alexandrosfotiou6580 Trust me every aviation history enthusiasts care. Look at other comments lol.
@@alexandrosfotiou6580 I'm a Pole, i don't like studying german, but i like history and it's actualy painfull to hear him mispronounce words like Junkers, Messerchmit and Göring
It's really not that hard to learn the pronounciation
Cry about it
@@regera6019 I didn't cry. I died from cringe lol.
An amazing design except for one thing:
The Jumo 004B, which was cutting edge for the time, was also a notoriously problematic power plant that needed constant maintenance and replacement, which is why so many were produced....
You can see how a Horton Wing came about in the blueprint At 3:02. If you cut the tail off, change the engines to jets, encase the engines & now we have flying wing! 🤘👽
Interesting fact: the stealth portion of this aircraft wasn't a feature they thought of back then, it was actually a side effect of the shape they came up with and it wasn't discovered until the mid 2000's when they did testing on a mock-up of it
I worked on the Northrop B2 flying wing. I asked similar questions. I was told that both the Horten H.XVIII and the Northrop YB-49 were unstable without a horizontal stabilizer. It wasn't until computer control was introduced that made flying controllable only using multiple sets of ailerons. All of the YB-49s were scrapped as far as I know.
Not true. The Hortens were continued in Argentina and flew successfully .
The design was worked on in Argentina. It sounds like the first iterations were test model for gliding. It says that one model was flown over the Andes. I do know that the Northrop design did fly, but was developed too late to be used in WWII and was cancelled by the US government, probably for political reasons, maybe technological as well and all were scrapped including the design files. Do you know if this wing design was successfully made and used militarily?
Well, the YB-35 and YB-49 both flew, so they did work. The problem was that they were rather unstable without the vertical stabilizer, which drastically limited their ability to maneuver and respond to threats. This is obviously a problem for an aircraft built for combat, a problem that conventional aircraft designs didn't have.
@@arturoeugster7228 did you just tell someone who worked on a top secret American flying wing that he is wrong about flying wings??
@@jvargas454 Reimar Horten immigrated to Argentina (after being denied asylum elsewhere) while his brother Walter remained in Germany and served in the German Air Force. Reimar continued aircraft research and design, but not exactly a continuation of the 229 program. The YB-35 and YB-49 suffered yaw instability problems, complicating their success as a precision bombing platform, as well as poor range and fuel economy. Northrop was testing yaw dampers to solve the instability. Meanwhile, the new Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington had began to pressure Northrop to merge with Convair Aircraft, and Jack Northrop refused to do that. Perhaps it was retribution, but Symington killed the YB-49 program and had all examples scrapped along with the original drawings. The last examples were scrapped in view of Northrop employees. Symington retired to a nice job at Convair and the Air Force was stuck with the B-36.
2:55
"messermitch"
what??
5:46 The Horton Bros. 10:25 Yunkers 13:59 Civil design & British Aviation 14:46 After the war
I gotta say, that Messermitch Me 264 looks great
You dont read Messer-mitch, you read Meeser-SHmit
Fun fact: one of Nazi Germany's greatest aviation companies' names literally translates to 'knife smith'.
English speakers don’t care how foreign words are pronounced
@@jeffjeff8750 The stupid ones don't care
@@jeffjeff8750 yes, i no caer for pronounced english to
also looft-vaffa, not loop-waffle XD
15:40 The B2 spirit does not incorporate design elements from any of the Horten aircraft. If anything, the B2 was designed using knowledge gained from the YB-49, which was the result of research and development being carried out by the Northrop Aircraft Corporation.
During the war Northrop and the Horten brothers new nothing of each other’s work, but when the latter’s research and prototype was discovered by the allies they were brought back to the US under Operation Paperclip and sealed away without being closely studied.
With it having been designed by the same company and sharing similar design elements (wingspan of 172 feet) with the YB-49 it is nonsensical to consider the B2 to be the legacy of the Horten bomber, and the fact that the blended geometry of both fuselages makes them visually similar is purely coincidental.
In fact, the B2 is the legacy of the single greatest aircraft designer of the 20th century: Jack Northrop
Yes. Convergent evolution.
Finally someone who knows what is going on with this bullshit
I still shed a tear reading Jack Northrup’s story. Man spent his entire life working on flying wings just to be screwed over because one of the generals asked his company to merge with Vultee, and when he didn’t, cancelled all YB-35/49 orders. At least he got to see the B-2 before he died.
you should take a look on the messerschmitt pronunciation, it tears my ears apart, its gonna be good for you in the long run aswell
“Spanda-ooo” - I’m subscribing just for this type of content!!
Northrop had problems with the XB35 and XB49 flying wings' stability as a bombing platform that kept if from being a front line bomber. The stability problem was solved in the B-2 with its fly by wire computerized flight control system.
A tail increases drag but it gives a stable flying regime where the efficiencies of the wing and tail can keep the craft level. A 'flying wing' design is unstable but is temptingly efficient. So people tried to make the tail smaller, from the K-7 to the Northrops, and the Stealth Bomber, always with the same result. I feel the first Horton prototype would have crashed. Modern computer controls would handle this, and future aircraft could look like this (but maybe with swept forward wings).
As to the radar signature: my father worked on the Vulcan project, and he told me the small radar signature came as a surprise. If it had a V-tail instead of the upright, it would have been nearly invisible. Designers assumed a metal aircraft must be visible to radar, and did not think how the radar bounced off.
I'm pretty sure the name Arsenal bird was used in one of the Ace combat games
Although this is often touted as a stealth aircraft it was not. The internal framework and the engines were all metal. The stealth idea arose because of some testing of a scale model build entirely of wood (if I remember the article correctly). One other comments in the article was that a lot of Nazi planes capabilities are made by proponents of the Napkin-waffle who love drawing aircraft and have great capabilities.
Not enough credit was given here to Jack Northrop.
He always gets ignored when the wehraboos talk about their wunderwaffles.
It could be because its not a video about Northrop.
There's a good reason we don't see a lot of these flying wings being used in real life. This design is inherently unstable we use computers on our stealth bomber that make the corrections to compensate for the instability.
Bro, america used the disgn and perfected it.
@@marcussixer1300 Yeah, I think you missed the point.
@@marcussixer1300 America "perfected it" AFTER using computer control. The B-49 flying wing crashed because of the instability that he was talking about.
Yes, the only catastrophic loss of life would have been the poor saps trying to fly this pile of shite.
@@marcussixer1300 It's still an inherently unstable design, our flying wing that we perfected has a computer that is making thousands of corrections every second to keep that thing from crashing. You could sit at any civilian airport in the country for a whole day and watch and never see a flying wing plane. Any comparable plane with a conventional fuselage will fly better than our flying wing. We are only using that design for stealth purposes to hide from radar, not because it flies really well. As far as aeronautics that design flies like shit.
There‘s another documentary about this plane and how American engineers from Northrop Grumman were building a modell from pieces and paperworks the US-Army found in Germany.
It proved that the plane hat a significantly lower radar Signatur and alarm time for the British attacked by Hortens plane sunk to only 8 minutes. Not enough time for the Royal Airforce to defend and get their fighter propellers airborne.