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Captured German Aircraft - Video
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RIOT said:
The Horten Flying Wing is probably the design which encapsulate the genius of Germany's aeronautical designers. When you look at what they were designing, and building, it demonstrates how many years ahead of the Allies they were in aircraft, rocket and missile technology.
JohnR
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It was also stealth technology, being made of wood and almost invisible to radar.Smithy said:
Northrop had flying wing designs around the same time as the Germans, and they didn't work out so well.
Twitch
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Here is a bit more on the H0 229 from a chapter of a book I wrote....
12- THE B-2’s GRANDFATHER
The Northrop aero engineers went to the Smithsonian storage facility where the un-restored Horten Ho 229 V3 built by Gotha resides. Why? Just to make sure that they got it right with the B-2. This plane, above all, is WW II’s super plane.
HORTEN FLUFZEUGBAU GmbH- BONN
How could three kids designing and building all-wing sailplanes in the 1930s end up constructing the true super plane of the Second World War? Walter, Wolfram and Reimar Horten were crazy about sailplanes like many young Germans. They built their own all-wing gliders. The all-wing concept was born in the 1920s with Alexander Lippisch’s tailless sailplanes. His aero theories did not stress all-wing exactly. He, like Rudolf G??thert at Gotha used vertical stabilizers of some sort for lateral stability. The
Horten brothers’ designs had none.
Hanna Reitsch flew their Ho 2 design after the Ho 1 had won in a 1934 competition and loved it. Of course Walter’s friendship with Ernst Udet of the Air Ministry didn’t hurt their success. In fact Walter later married Udet’s secretary. Things halted while each brother entered Luftwaffe service. Walter served with JG26 on the French front. Wolfram flew Do 18 flying boats to the North Pole and later in an He 59 sank a Polish destroyer. Reimar’s innovative aeronautical ideas won him acclaim as a reserve officer in 1936. The trio rejected offers from Heinkel and Messerschmitt for employment.
HO 229
With the 1942 requirement in mind for a jet bomber, the Hortens took three full years to put together their Ho 9A prototype that ultimately became the Ho 229 V2. A V3 was assembled as a test bed for production techniques and the V4 was the first 2-seat production aircraft. The V1 was a non-powered glider. We know that the Gotha engineers noted a concern for a lack of lateral stability. Without a vertical fin of some sort the Ho 9 flying wing shape would make slight yaw undulations as an alligator swims, they believed. Walter conceded that a vertical fin would assist the design and make it a better fighter gun platform. This would have been the Ho 9B with a single Jumo 004 turbojet.
If we fast forward a bit we note that Jack Northrop’s separate development of the all-wing craft culminated with the NM-1 in 1940 but it had twin booms with control surfaces attached. The B-35 was all-wing with four 2,000 HP P & W piston pushers. Those engine nacelles may have added some lateral stability in place of a fin. The YB-49 was pure jet with eight Allisons good enough to push the 172-foot span to 500 MPH but it had four small vertical fins at the end of upper surface wing strakes.
So perhaps the Ho 229 probably would have been retrofitted with a fin or two once more flight-testing was done. During the limited flying of the V2 in December 1944 pilot Lt. Ziller achieved 500 MPH at 70% throttle. It climbed faster and at a steeper angle of attack than the Me 262 as Hermann G??ring observed. The V2 ultimately crashed after an engine failure. Most importantly, there was no sign of yawing alligator crawl!
When we state estimated performance for many of the “blueprint” airplanes we must understand that aeronautical engineers used slide rules to calculate it given weight, power and aerodynamics. Today they use computers but the math is the same. And the Ho 229 was the real deal.
The wing on the 9A spanned 54.1 feet and lengthwise it was 24.6 feet. All up weight was 18,739 lbs. from a 10,140 lb. empty weight. The pilot was nestled between the two Junker Jumo 004Bs with 1,984 lbs. thrust, which made for a cruise of 429 MPH at 32,810 feet with 60% throttle. Normally a 3-hour mission would cover 1,180 miles but external fuel could extend that to 1,970 miles. Two 2,205 lb. bombs were to be carried and its four 30 mm Mk 108 cannon were to have had about 200 RPG.
Performance was excellent. While 500 MPH had already been achieved a 590 MPH velocity at sea level was projected along with 607 MPH at 39,372 feet. Climb was 4,331 FPM and the ceiling was a whopping 52, 496 feet. Jumo 004C engines with 2,200 lbs. thrust were projected for later production run giving about 640 MPH maximum with a 559 MPH cruise. We can only guess at what a pair of 2,866 lb. thrust HeS 11s would have done!
The footnote to the Ho 229 V3 is the fact that it was brought to the U.S. for evaluation. Since it was meant as construction assembly model the Air Force abandoned the idea though it would have been airworthy since it was not simply a “cobbled” mock up. In the 1970s the Air and Space Museum was collecting worthy aircraft from a Chicago scrap facility when asked if they wanted “that old German flying wing.” History was saved and someday the Ho 229 will be restored.
No trail of history follows the V4, the first production aircraft. When the Army over ran the Gotha facilities the V4 was, by all accounts nearly complete and had been made into a 2-seat night fighter. Guns, armor and all- there it was. It is rumored that this plane was taken to the U.S. for flight-testing. Could copies have been produced by someone for say, the USAF? It is strange that the 1947 “sighting” by Kenneth Arnold describes crescent-shaped craft. He never said they were saucer-shaped, only that they skimmed through the air like a saucer skipped across water. His drawings show what resembles the Ho 229. Hmm?
The V-5 and V-6 night fighters were found partially finished while the V7 and V8 were a pile of parts.
This superior aircraft was already in its testing phase for a planned production. Nothing fantasy here. This baby would have to have had to have been reckoned with if it was produced in any numbers in a prolonged war not ending in May 1945.
HO 9B
In keeping with the Reich’s need to conserve resources late in the conflict the 9B was planned around one Jumo 004B and with an HeS 11 when available. It had the vertical fin in the 9C designation where the 9B had a cockpit and engine fuselage above the wing. The span was more at 54.5 feet while length grew to 30.2 feet. A 634 MPH speed was figured using the HeS turbine with the same ceiling as the 9A and a range of 1,000 miles. 4,409 lbs. of bombs could be carried with the standard, four Mk 108 cannon....
12- THE B-2’s GRANDFATHER
The Northrop aero engineers went to the Smithsonian storage facility where the un-restored Horten Ho 229 V3 built by Gotha resides. Why? Just to make sure that they got it right with the B-2. This plane, above all, is WW II’s super plane.
HORTEN FLUFZEUGBAU GmbH- BONN
How could three kids designing and building all-wing sailplanes in the 1930s end up constructing the true super plane of the Second World War? Walter, Wolfram and Reimar Horten were crazy about sailplanes like many young Germans. They built their own all-wing gliders. The all-wing concept was born in the 1920s with Alexander Lippisch’s tailless sailplanes. His aero theories did not stress all-wing exactly. He, like Rudolf G??thert at Gotha used vertical stabilizers of some sort for lateral stability. The
Horten brothers’ designs had none.
Hanna Reitsch flew their Ho 2 design after the Ho 1 had won in a 1934 competition and loved it. Of course Walter’s friendship with Ernst Udet of the Air Ministry didn’t hurt their success. In fact Walter later married Udet’s secretary. Things halted while each brother entered Luftwaffe service. Walter served with JG26 on the French front. Wolfram flew Do 18 flying boats to the North Pole and later in an He 59 sank a Polish destroyer. Reimar’s innovative aeronautical ideas won him acclaim as a reserve officer in 1936. The trio rejected offers from Heinkel and Messerschmitt for employment.
HO 229
With the 1942 requirement in mind for a jet bomber, the Hortens took three full years to put together their Ho 9A prototype that ultimately became the Ho 229 V2. A V3 was assembled as a test bed for production techniques and the V4 was the first 2-seat production aircraft. The V1 was a non-powered glider. We know that the Gotha engineers noted a concern for a lack of lateral stability. Without a vertical fin of some sort the Ho 9 flying wing shape would make slight yaw undulations as an alligator swims, they believed. Walter conceded that a vertical fin would assist the design and make it a better fighter gun platform. This would have been the Ho 9B with a single Jumo 004 turbojet.
If we fast forward a bit we note that Jack Northrop’s separate development of the all-wing craft culminated with the NM-1 in 1940 but it had twin booms with control surfaces attached. The B-35 was all-wing with four 2,000 HP P & W piston pushers. Those engine nacelles may have added some lateral stability in place of a fin. The YB-49 was pure jet with eight Allisons good enough to push the 172-foot span to 500 MPH but it had four small vertical fins at the end of upper surface wing strakes.
So perhaps the Ho 229 probably would have been retrofitted with a fin or two once more flight-testing was done. During the limited flying of the V2 in December 1944 pilot Lt. Ziller achieved 500 MPH at 70% throttle. It climbed faster and at a steeper angle of attack than the Me 262 as Hermann G??ring observed. The V2 ultimately crashed after an engine failure. Most importantly, there was no sign of yawing alligator crawl!
When we state estimated performance for many of the “blueprint” airplanes we must understand that aeronautical engineers used slide rules to calculate it given weight, power and aerodynamics. Today they use computers but the math is the same. And the Ho 229 was the real deal.
The wing on the 9A spanned 54.1 feet and lengthwise it was 24.6 feet. All up weight was 18,739 lbs. from a 10,140 lb. empty weight. The pilot was nestled between the two Junker Jumo 004Bs with 1,984 lbs. thrust, which made for a cruise of 429 MPH at 32,810 feet with 60% throttle. Normally a 3-hour mission would cover 1,180 miles but external fuel could extend that to 1,970 miles. Two 2,205 lb. bombs were to be carried and its four 30 mm Mk 108 cannon were to have had about 200 RPG.
Performance was excellent. While 500 MPH had already been achieved a 590 MPH velocity at sea level was projected along with 607 MPH at 39,372 feet. Climb was 4,331 FPM and the ceiling was a whopping 52, 496 feet. Jumo 004C engines with 2,200 lbs. thrust were projected for later production run giving about 640 MPH maximum with a 559 MPH cruise. We can only guess at what a pair of 2,866 lb. thrust HeS 11s would have done!
The footnote to the Ho 229 V3 is the fact that it was brought to the U.S. for evaluation. Since it was meant as construction assembly model the Air Force abandoned the idea though it would have been airworthy since it was not simply a “cobbled” mock up. In the 1970s the Air and Space Museum was collecting worthy aircraft from a Chicago scrap facility when asked if they wanted “that old German flying wing.” History was saved and someday the Ho 229 will be restored.
No trail of history follows the V4, the first production aircraft. When the Army over ran the Gotha facilities the V4 was, by all accounts nearly complete and had been made into a 2-seat night fighter. Guns, armor and all- there it was. It is rumored that this plane was taken to the U.S. for flight-testing. Could copies have been produced by someone for say, the USAF? It is strange that the 1947 “sighting” by Kenneth Arnold describes crescent-shaped craft. He never said they were saucer-shaped, only that they skimmed through the air like a saucer skipped across water. His drawings show what resembles the Ho 229. Hmm?
The V-5 and V-6 night fighters were found partially finished while the V7 and V8 were a pile of parts.
This superior aircraft was already in its testing phase for a planned production. Nothing fantasy here. This baby would have to have had to have been reckoned with if it was produced in any numbers in a prolonged war not ending in May 1945.
HO 9B
In keeping with the Reich’s need to conserve resources late in the conflict the 9B was planned around one Jumo 004B and with an HeS 11 when available. It had the vertical fin in the 9C designation where the 9B had a cockpit and engine fuselage above the wing. The span was more at 54.5 feet while length grew to 30.2 feet. A 634 MPH speed was figured using the HeS turbine with the same ceiling as the 9A and a range of 1,000 miles. 4,409 lbs. of bombs could be carried with the standard, four Mk 108 cannon....
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