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Hitler's Stealth Fighter
DesScorp writes "Aviation Week reports on a television special from the National Geographic Channel on what may have been the world's first true stealth fighter, the Horten Ho 229, a wooden design that was to include a layer of carbon material sandwiched in the leading edge to defeat radar. Northrop Grumman, experts at stealth technology from their Tacit Blue and B-2 programs, have built a full-size replica of the airframe and tested it at their desert facilities where they determined that the design was indeed stealthy, and would have been practically invisible to Britain's Chain Home radar system of WWII."
The most interesting photos:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/39xx/394x/3942_Hitlers_Stealth_Fighter-09_10240768.jpg
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/39xx/394x/3942_Hitlers_Stealth_Fighter-08_10240768.jpg
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/39xx/394x/3942_Hitlers_Stealth_Fighter-04_10240768.jpg
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/39xx/394x/3942_Hitlers_Stealth_Fighter-11_10240768.jpg
Not exactly. It is possible to build a flying wing type aircraft that is stable. They're generally not as easy to fly as more traditional designs, but it's possible. Also keep in mind that aircraft of that era flew much slower. Part of the difficulty with modern designs is with the insane speeds they can reach. The aerodynamics of very fast (ie. supersonic) craft are much different from slower craft.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
The Horton was a bomber, not a fighter. It was part of Hitlers 1000,1000,1000 goal. 1000kg of bombs 1000km at 1000km/hr.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, it's the best explanation I read so far.
It just took quite a few years for us to make a plane that looked like a Horton. :) Actually, there were quite a few developed and some manufactured. They simply weren't as popular as "conventional" aircraft. I would suspect part would be due to the difference in manufacturing cost, and some to do with customer faith. "I know an airplane with wings and a tail can fly. Why should I believe something like that can?". Maybe the long gap in development of flying wing aircraft wasn't. It was just classified. What do you think they do at Area 51 (among other secret facilities), store alien bodies and reverse engineer wormhole technology? :)
I love aviation, and have been amazed with Horton's aircraft. There were several similar aircraft. I saw one in person at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles. There's a Horton Ho IIIf on display (hanging from the roof), part of a Horton Ho IIIh, and I found reference to a Horton Ho 229 being restored for display there. If I remember correctly, you'd go straight in the front door, and to the left behind the SR-71, but before the room with the Space Shuttle Enterprise. They have some beautiful aircraft there. It's worth the visit if you like aviation.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You are going on about the shape, which wasn't even claimed to be for stealthiness. The claimed stealth feature was the layer of carbon material sandwiched into the leading edge of the plane to reduce its radar signature. Thus, it was the first plane to incorporate design features specifically for stealth. Nothing you said even addresses that. Whether stealth was considered of secondary importance, or whether all the components were designed for stealth, is irrelevant.
To be fair, the utterly stupid and ridiculous rules of engagement forced on US forces by the civilian leadership for most of the war prevented them from doing anything against those air defense sites except in reaction to being fired upon. It's kinda like fighting while handcuffed.
Also, the German technology was mostly serindipitous. Radar cross-section is much more a function of airframe shaping than materials; it just happened that flying wings tended to be better-shaped than traditional aircraft. But all of this was a trial-and-error process. We learned some from this, and incorporated those lessons into the B-70 proposal and the SR-71. However, it wasn't until the F-117 program (and its contemporaries) came along that we had
A. The theoretical base on which to reliably compute radar reflections (ironically enough, most of that was developed by the Soviets and seemed to be largely ignored by them for a while).
B. The computational power to work out reflections over even a simple faceted shape.
C. The control technology to make such shapes flyable.
And even then, the result was a flat-faceted, ungainly monstrosity. It took a little longer before we could compute reflections of curved surfaces, and develop something like the B-2.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
There was a short story written by Arthur C. Clarke titled "Superiority" that discussed this. Of course, it being science fiction, the weapons were very interesting (matter annihilators, space distortion systems). Also, since it was written (in the 50s?) some of the vocabulary is quaint (I think the term "torpedoes" refer to what we would call missiles).
Still I didn't know (according to Wikipedia) that it was (once?) required reading at West Point! (For those not from the U.S., that is one of the premiere military academies).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
No, he lost because he over extended himself into Russia.
No weapon at the time wold have stopped the russians once the begain moving toward Germany.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on