There can be absolutely NO QUESTION of the genius of Jack Northrop. He was years ahead of his time, with an unmatched insight into the designs of powdred flight.
This was such a tragic story. Jack Northrup feeling like his revolutionary design was a failure.... until computers could compensate for the Yaw issues of the flying wing. He left aviation feeling like his designs were a failure. BUT, later it was proven that he was just ahead of his time. I've heard that before his death, in violation of national security regulations, he was told that indeed his design would be the cutting edge of American bombers the country would adopt for future warfare. Better late than never I guess- I'm glad he knew before his death that his innovations were indeed state of the art and not failures-
One of the neatest things in the original “War of the Worlds” movie was the use of colour footage of the flying wing supposedly dropping the a-bomb on the Martians. Excellent use of stock footage of this rare plane.
The YB-49 did NOT loose out to the B-36, it WON the competition. The YB-49 was rejected when Jack Northrup refused to merge his company with Convair (builders of the B-36) at the insistence of the Secretary for the Air Force. This was reveled in Clete Roberts' report and interview with Jack Northrup (I have a copy of the full report recorded).
@@aandc2005 AF Secretary Stuart Symington ordered them all scrapped. Partly to punish Northrop for refusing to merge with Convair. Symington later took a nice job at Convair.
It's an absolute crime that they destroyed all the flying wings. At least one should have been preserved for the Air Force museum. The B2 proves Jack Northrop was on the right track.
Granted, they should have kept one. But if the B2 proves one thing, it's that the problem of keeping a flying wing controllable without sophisticated computers has yet to be solved.
@@nikolaus2688 Actually, the Horton Brothers solved that issue with the first Jet powered Flying Wing. The prototype ran circles around an ME 262. Project Paper Clip took a Horton Wing to America. And photographed the factory and its mass production line of flying wings.
The B-2 is within a few-inches of the XB-35/YB49 in- both Wingspan, AND Chord-length at the Outer spans! What Jack did-not-yet-have, was Reactive Fly-By-Wire Control. He was, simply ,6 decades Ahead of the complexity needed in Reactive Control of the flaps. If he had that Computer-Driven control-surface manipulation, we'd be using the flying wings as Airliners for, oh a half-century by now. The Horten Brothers, somehow, did a bit better that Northrop, by making Gliders first, then adapting those to use Engines, some of which were early Jets. Those were 'skittish' in Yaw, but didn't seem to have the 'flip-stall' issue that Northrop's wings tended towards. Those combined 'issues' have been figured out now in the B-2, X-47, and B-21 planes we now have.
During the test phase of the B-2 they brought Jack (in his late 80's and in a wheel chair) to a secret location(probably know where that is begins with a number 5)....they showed him a large model of the B2...Jack took the model with his hands shaking and said "Now I know why god has keep me alive so long.."..it took him his whole life to see his dream come true, those words mean so much to me and its something that I'll never forget
They got permission to show Jack the model of the B 2 Spirit bomber. Mr. Northrop had suffered a stroke and had lost the ability to speak. He cried when he saw what they pulled out of the box.
I'm pretty sure the first flying wing designs were before Northrop but to be fair, he certainly did develop the design for much longer and with much more success than anyone else. While the Horton Ho229 looked interesting but I suggest might have been too much new technology employed into a single design. That the B2 proved it a good solution and we are now seeing the development of a second generation of military flying wing bombers shows that their is confidence in the design.
The B-2 and B-21 are specialist, stealth aircraft. From what I understand, they are mostly functional due to complex modern computer systems that can compensate for the lack of a fuselage and tail. Meanwhile, practically all other modern aircraft continue to have a fuselage, a vertical tail, and wings. Most of the military ones are supersonic, unlike any of the flying wing designs. Only the stealth features kept the flying wing concept from being a complete dead end. Boy, they sure look cool though.
Have you seen proposed designs for the 6th gen stuff from the US? They all lack a conventional empennage. Stealth is just one reason for this. There are major aerodynamic benefits as well The reason why planes like the F-22 and F-35 have a conventional empennage is because they needed it for control reasons. That will likely not be the case for a lot of future aircraft as better control without conventional control surfaces become more and more developed. Also, basically every single *new* recent jet is a fly-by-computer setup, even in airframes that are inherently stable such as airliners. Fly-by-wire literally dates back to WW2 and iirc the F-16 in 1978 was the first military jet to use a fly-by-computer version of fly-by-wire. So this is going to be a feature of everything in the future. So that is a non-issue.
@@whyjnot420 All true, but I was describing actual modern aircraft, as opposed to proposals. I'm no aerospace engineer though. From what I have observed, the flying wings are very niche as of 2024, much like 1947, although two designs are now deployed - in miniscule numbers. There were 21 B-2 Spirits produced with one crashed in Guam and another already in the USAF mega museum in Dayton, Ohio. Jack Northrop's vision of fleets of flying wings is likely decades away. It's a shame as they look so good.
@@amerigo88 X-47B. Yes it is one with an X designation, but it is far from a proposal. It has actually taken off and landed on a carrier. Note that this isn't simply an experiment. It was a tech demonstrator. Meant as both a practical real world test as well as to show how it could be utilized. This was a drone, but check out the Loyal Wingman program for the Air Force to see how they plan on utilizing similar drones alongside manned fighters. These (and things like I referenced in my first reply) are actually blended wing designs. The halfway point between a pure flying wing and a lifting body. You can think of them as an evolution of both. It is true that they are not pure flying wings but then again, neither was the YB-49 (the jet version of the YB-35) as it had vertical stabilizers. Keep in mind that a lifting body design is already the halfway point between a traditional design and a flying wing. So I would argue that they are more flying wing than not, though I will readily admit that they are not true flying wings (as I just did). food for thought: Would they look as good if they were ubiquitous? I would answer "No." As one of the reasons we love flying wings is because of how different they look. Most people don't even bother looking at where the engines are located in a plane, but they sure as hell can tell the difference between a B-52 and B-2. And just about everyone gets bored of the stuff they see all the time. Sure they would still look "good" just not as good.
yep even the last ten years one can fly veris RC craftd cause of the advansment in tiac> GPS . u can actuly set gps in a model to take off and lans in a foot are so of programed spot [WOW]
The concept of Fly By Wire computer control was something learned from the study of Nature. Aeronautical Engineers all agree that a Bumble Bee CANNOT fly because of its poor design. Yet, not only can it fly in forward flight, but it can Hover and Fly Backwards too! And why? Because its brain allows it to. And they do NOT listen to Nay Saying engineers. Stealth craft using facets use Fly by Wire. Think of the F-117 Nighthawk. Back in the early days of the 20th Century, the Aeronautical Engineers of the day all said powered controlled forward flight was impossible. Because they all flunked badly. It took a couple of Bicycle Building brothers to show Mankind the way.
Dig through YT for the flight tests, the Edwards crash, and behind the scenes disagreements before the cancellation of Northrop's Flying Wing. Explains much..
Technology well ahead of its time and sadly ahead of fly by wire technologies time also, which would have made its inherent instability a positive advantage. B36 was an amazing stop gap but arguably only by way of its scale.
When I first saw a B-2 in person at an air show at Jeffco airport back in '99 or so, all I could think was that everyone in the USA should be able to have one, just as a benefit of being an American!!! ;-) God, it's a beautiful plane!!!
When you do a documentary on technology, you need to make sure the facts are facts. Not to take anything away from Jack Northrop, but he did not conceive the idea of a flying wing, Hugo Junker patented a flying wing design some 15 to 20 years before Northrop did. It wasn't just Germany, but Britain and several other nation were designing flying wings concepts as far back as 1908.
When I was working at a local Naval Air Station I went to a private briefing regarding Jack Northrop, during his retirement, his former company leadership treated him with a disrespect that was not deserved, I was surprised at that behavior. It did work out but only because some government personnel intervened in his last days.
Seeing that promo for the concept of a flying-wing airliner, I had to laugh when I saw the picture-windows. "Watch the world below!" Acrophobes would crap their pants. There's a big difference between looking out a window beside you and looking down past your feet to the ground. Heck, I'm not acrophobic in the least, and it gave me a bit of a start. A bit of trivia about Glen Edwards: he was warned by one of his fellow test pilots NOT to stall the YB-49. I saw in interview with that pilot, and he said once the wing stalls, it flips nose-over-tail. He was only able to recover by applying full power to the engines on one side while idling the others. That put the aircraft in a recoverable state, but it was a narrow escape from certain death. But Edwards had stall-testing on the schedule, so that's what he did, unfortunately. (The problem persists to this day: stalling a flying wing is very nearly unrecoverable. Because of this, the fly-by-wire system on the B-2 simply does not allow a stall to occur in the first place.)
My friends and I saw the flying wing flying when we attended 118th Street Elementary School (Los Angeles) in late 1940. I guess it had taken off or was landing at Hawthorne airport. We didn't know the significance of the flying wing at that time. But we looked up to count how many ket planes we saw during the day 😮
I have to take issue with your comment at 8:12; suggesting Germany’s “success“ at bombing Britain. I’m not sure how you are defining success in this case. While the Luftwaffe’s campaign was destructive and terrorizing, by no measure was it a success. Neither strategically or tactically. And fell far short of diminishing the moral of the British themselves. So where is the success you mention? In fact the apparent “strategy of the Luftwaffe was run incompetently by Goehring, attacking RAF vital assets, and switched, by order of the other incompetent, der fuehrer himself, to bombing British cities. It allowed the RAF to regroup and hand Germany a loss in the Battle of Britain. Success? I think not.
I find it strange that the German prototypes of the Horton Ho 229 were not even mentioned here, although it is known that these prototypes and the blueprints were the template for Northrop to build its own flying wing prototypes with jet engines such as the YB 49 flying wing.
Northrop began experiments and research into flying wings in the 1920s, way before the Ho229 was actually a thing. It would be better to say that the 229 was more of a contemporary rather than an inspiration for the YB-49 since the 49 was developed from the YB-35
You might also want to learn about Captain Geoffrey T. R. Hill. there is a lot to learn from his research (also considering who he also worked with!) ua-cam.com/video/y6fBiXoMv8M/v-deo.html
It was a interesting idea at the time, but frankly, the poor yaw stability of the plane and the fact it was nearly 100 mph slower than the B-47 _Stratojet_ even with the XB-49 jet vesrion pretty much doomed the idea at the time. It wasn't until modern fly-by-wire systems became available that flying wing design was made viable again with the B-2 bomber.
I thought that one of the ideas is that the propeller behind everything is in slower air and hence even a propeller version can be as fast as a jet. And on a pusher bigger propellers mean more jaw stability and not less like when you pull on pods in front of the wings or -- shudder -- pull on the nose. I want to see a ( RC model ) with blades / fins on a rail that move on the trailing edge outwards / backwards, than rotate into horizontal orientation on the tip and in this orientation move back inside the wing. Slow movement to avoid transonic flow. No tips in faster than the sound. It sucks away bubbles on take-off to prevent stall. So actually, I want an RC model which flies high and fast .. touching transonic. The flying chain-saw.
The B36 was always soooo silly. We just dropped the bomb on Japan. Nuclear weapons don't have to be that heavy to deal tremendous damage. Why would you ever need more than 10,000 pounds of carrying capacity to deliver nuclear weapons?
I saw it fly once North Las Vegas like no profile even from the ground till it banked looked like a sci fi movies too cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think it likely that an experimental flight of these was what Kenneth Arnold saw in 1947 The Horten types were known for instability in pitch which would accord with Arnold's "piepans skipping across water" observation Also the similar DH108 killed its pilot Geoffrey de Haviland Jr due to violent pitch oscillation.
How did he possibly get the control surfaces to work in 1947 without modern microprocessors and software? You need computer assistance to keep a tailless plane like that in bounds. EDIT: okay I kept watching more. Right, the wing crashed because the wing isn't stable enough to work without computerized assistance. Instability when aided by computers is a good thing. It worked great on the F16. But sadly for Northrop there is no way you can make a wing work in 1947.
YB-49 was not unstable, Northrop installed a yaw damper on it nicknamed "little Herbert". An early version of today's computer stabilization. According to test pilot Charles Tucker it was "rock solid". It met all USAF requirements. Problem was US had little money in late 1940's, Boeing and Convair had much more capable salesmen.
The flying wing got it's start in ww 2 Germany and the Horton's. They made the first radar deflecting plane, though it wasn't that great. Called the Horton Ho 229. There is one in the Smithsonian.
@@hiddentruth1982 No, it was not an attempt of stealth. It was a coincidence. Wanna know why? Because they never mentioned anything the like when the cold war started getting interesting despite Reimar Horten actually being desperate for an employer. If he knew what he was doing, why didn't he claim any expertise concerning stealth? Watch "Military Aviation History"'s video on the Ho229, please. It is going to clear everything up.
@@Leon_der_Luftige watch the video dark skies put out on it. You have to think that they wouldn't want it being public about any form of stealth abilities during the cold war as it would be something they wouldn't want the Russians knowing about. There was a lot of information that wasn't made public and still isn't today.
Even with the design, the 229 was only less stealthier than a 109 in terms of RCS. Northrop engineers tested the RCS by making a mockup made from the same materials as the 229 and saw that the design chosen by the Horten bros didn't make much of a difference.
He may have been inspired to study aeronautics by birds but he didn't get the flying wing idea from them. Traditional aircraft are inspired by birds. Cockpit, fuselage, tail and two wings.
Actually, the yaw problems of the YB49 were solved by using a Norton bomb site as a yaw damper. The main reason the program for the YB49 was cancelled was because of the stealth characteristics of the airframe. It is why they wete ALL SCRAPPED by the military. It was too big of a risk to the destabilization of the cold war. Did you kkow that Jack Northrop presented the flying wing airframe design to NASA to be evaluated? Thats why it came back. The military knew what they had but the world wasn't ready for it
Fascinating however it misses out the other programmes to produce flying wings. It’s a missed opportunity as it identifies that other talented design team found solving the stability issues difficult eg the well known Hortens and the less well known Armstrong Whitworths (fortunately their prototypes included ejector seats which saved the life of the pilot in their 1st jet prototype). The flying wing concept was a dead end for both the Germans and British as it didn’t fit their geographic or strategic needs which could be met by more conventional designs whereas there was a compelling argument for the US.
Shhhh... Tumbleweeds! Because Northrop is the American stand-in for the true inventor of the flying wing. It's an American disease of isolationist education & outlook plus telling its populace that they're the best country ever! They need to appropriate inventions from other countries just to bolster themselves. No one notices because who reads about foreigners? Or "Who reads?" might be closer to the truth. For 5% of the Earth's population you seem to have invented so much! And no-one outside your boundaries believes a fraction of it! M Read the Miles M.52 story & you'll see how they do it with help from the wealthiest Home for the Elderly, the Senate.
The XB-35 was a far more efficient Aircraft, had the contra-rotating drive system been perfected. The YB-49 would have never existed. The M9N @ chino has unfortunately crashed and been destroyed. With the lack of Nor-crafters, never flew again. I have many differences between history and this video. I will reference "The Wing Will Fly", a Discover Channel documentary. Lies are lies, and yes , I call you out for yours.
The main government decision maker that cancelled the flying wing ended up working for the convair people after politics! But I'm sure it wasn't political that cancelled the wing! 😂
The demand to merge with Convair and his denial to do so is what doomed the company. Stuart Simington had the contract cancelled and all the wings were chopped up and destroyed. Alot of things point to the crash of the YB-49 as sabotage Just think of how much more advanced our aviation could have been it not for Simington and the crash.
US flying wing designs owe a lot to German WW2 research, the Me163 Komet being the most spectacular example of an actual combat aircraft. Horten also did a lot of research. I understand Jack Northrop was shown the B-2 prototype as a late tribute to his work.
Greetings Greetings ◇ Well next to the emerging Airships ~●~ Interest!@! Northrop should take a renewed Interest in the flying Wing Commercial proposal also!@!
I doubt that, Northrop was working on his at the very beginning of ww2!! In fact his first one was prop driven!! Maybe Horton came up with the idea around the same time or shortly after but Northrop was first and wasn’t just a drawing.
@@Legion-xq8eo the Horten brothers had flying wings that could be flown before the end of WW2. After the Americans captured and sent them to the states one of our top test pilots even flew one.
Hortens were supporting Adolf. Allied aircraft- invented by the WRIGHT brothers Destroyed theLuftwaffe and would have blown the katzenjammer kids flying thing out of the air too.
+@rocketshipsoapys Northrop began building his YB-35 wing in 1941, long before the Horten brothers were given any permission to design their prototypes.
➤➤ Watch more aircraft, heroes, and their stories, and missions: www.youtube.com/@Dronescapes
➤➤ Join the channel: www.youtube.com/@Dronescapes/join
➤ IG ➤ instagram.com/dronescapesvideos
➤ FB ➤ facebook.com/Dronescapesvideos
➤ X/Twitter ➤ dronescapes.video/2p89vedj
➤ THREADS ➤ www.threads.net/@dronescapesvideos
Where is snt Pruitt
There can be absolutely NO QUESTION of the genius of Jack Northrop. He was years ahead of his time, with an unmatched insight into the designs of powdred flight.
This was such a tragic story. Jack Northrup feeling like his revolutionary design was a failure.... until computers could compensate for the Yaw issues of the flying wing. He left aviation feeling like his designs were a failure. BUT, later it was proven that he was just ahead of his time. I've heard that before his death, in violation of national security regulations, he was told that indeed his design would be the cutting edge of American bombers the country would adopt for future warfare. Better late than never I guess- I'm glad he knew before his death that his innovations were indeed state of the art and not failures-
I met Jack Northrop about three years before he died. I found him to be a friendly and talkative man.
One of the neatest things in the original “War of the Worlds” movie was the use of colour footage of the flying wing supposedly dropping the a-bomb on the Martians.
Excellent use of stock footage of this rare plane.
yes that was awesome footage so glad they used that in the movie! :)
The YB-49 did NOT loose out to the B-36, it WON the competition. The YB-49 was rejected when Jack Northrup refused to merge his company with Convair (builders of the B-36) at the insistence of the Secretary for the Air Force. This was reveled in Clete Roberts' report and interview with Jack Northrup (I have a copy of the full report recorded).
yes and another thing that the government should never have done is they destroy all of those! There isn't a single one left.. Why???
@@aandc2005 AF Secretary Stuart Symington ordered them all scrapped. Partly to punish Northrop for refusing to merge with Convair. Symington later took a nice job at Convair.
I enjoyed this one, some great vintage imagery. Sadly the N-9M was crashed several years ago. thanks for this !
It's an absolute crime that they destroyed all the flying wings. At least one should have been preserved for the Air Force museum. The B2 proves Jack Northrop was on the right track.
Granted, they should have kept one. But if the B2 proves one thing, it's that the problem of keeping a flying wing controllable without sophisticated computers has yet to be solved.
@@nikolaus2688 Actually, the Horton Brothers solved that issue with the first Jet powered Flying Wing. The prototype ran circles around an ME 262. Project Paper Clip took a Horton Wing to America. And photographed the factory and its mass production line of flying wings.
34:20 "Now I know why God has kept me alive for the last 25 years."
I *knew* this was coming. Hits me in the emotions every time I hear this story.
The B-2 is within a few-inches of the XB-35/YB49 in- both Wingspan, AND Chord-length at the Outer spans! What Jack did-not-yet-have, was Reactive Fly-By-Wire Control. He was, simply ,6 decades Ahead of the complexity needed in Reactive Control of the flaps. If he had that Computer-Driven control-surface manipulation, we'd be using the flying wings as Airliners for, oh a half-century by now. The Horten Brothers, somehow, did a bit better that Northrop, by making Gliders first, then adapting those to use Engines, some of which were early Jets. Those were 'skittish' in Yaw, but didn't seem to have the 'flip-stall' issue that Northrop's wings tended towards. Those combined 'issues' have been figured out now in the B-2, X-47, and B-21 planes we now have.
Amazing work done by these fine gentleman. Such great work done with craftsmanship a slide rule and a #4 pencil.
During the test phase of the B-2 they brought Jack (in his late 80's and in a wheel chair) to a secret location(probably know where that is begins with a number 5)....they showed him a large model of the B2...Jack took the model with his hands shaking and said "Now I know why god has keep me alive so long.."..it took him his whole life to see his dream come true, those words mean so much to me and its something that I'll never forget
When Jack Northrop was shown the model of the first successful modern flying wing he cried with appreciation for his efforts....
Very true
They got permission to show Jack the model of the B 2 Spirit bomber. Mr. Northrop had suffered a stroke and had lost the ability to speak. He cried when he saw what they pulled out of the box.
I'm pretty sure the first flying wing designs were before Northrop but to be fair, he certainly did develop the design for much longer and with much more success than anyone else.
While the Horton Ho229 looked interesting but I suggest might have been too much new technology employed into a single design.
That the B2 proved it a good solution and we are now seeing the development of a second generation of military flying wing bombers shows that their is confidence in the design.
The B-2 and B-21 are specialist, stealth aircraft. From what I understand, they are mostly functional due to complex modern computer systems that can compensate for the lack of a fuselage and tail. Meanwhile, practically all other modern aircraft continue to have a fuselage, a vertical tail, and wings. Most of the military ones are supersonic, unlike any of the flying wing designs.
Only the stealth features kept the flying wing concept from being a complete dead end. Boy, they sure look cool though.
Have you seen proposed designs for the 6th gen stuff from the US? They all lack a conventional empennage. Stealth is just one reason for this. There are major aerodynamic benefits as well
The reason why planes like the F-22 and F-35 have a conventional empennage is because they needed it for control reasons. That will likely not be the case for a lot of future aircraft as better control without conventional control surfaces become more and more developed.
Also, basically every single *new* recent jet is a fly-by-computer setup, even in airframes that are inherently stable such as airliners. Fly-by-wire literally dates back to WW2 and iirc the F-16 in 1978 was the first military jet to use a fly-by-computer version of fly-by-wire. So this is going to be a feature of everything in the future. So that is a non-issue.
@@whyjnot420 All true, but I was describing actual modern aircraft, as opposed to proposals. I'm no aerospace engineer though. From what I have observed, the flying wings are very niche as of 2024, much like 1947, although two designs are now deployed - in miniscule numbers. There were 21 B-2 Spirits produced with one crashed in Guam and another already in the USAF mega museum in Dayton, Ohio. Jack Northrop's vision of fleets of flying wings is likely decades away. It's a shame as they look so good.
@@amerigo88 X-47B. Yes it is one with an X designation, but it is far from a proposal. It has actually taken off and landed on a carrier. Note that this isn't simply an experiment. It was a tech demonstrator. Meant as both a practical real world test as well as to show how it could be utilized. This was a drone, but check out the Loyal Wingman program for the Air Force to see how they plan on utilizing similar drones alongside manned fighters.
These (and things like I referenced in my first reply) are actually blended wing designs. The halfway point between a pure flying wing and a lifting body. You can think of them as an evolution of both. It is true that they are not pure flying wings but then again, neither was the YB-49 (the jet version of the YB-35) as it had vertical stabilizers. Keep in mind that a lifting body design is already the halfway point between a traditional design and a flying wing. So I would argue that they are more flying wing than not, though I will readily admit that they are not true flying wings (as I just did).
food for thought: Would they look as good if they were ubiquitous? I would answer "No." As one of the reasons we love flying wings is because of how different they look. Most people don't even bother looking at where the engines are located in a plane, but they sure as hell can tell the difference between a B-52 and B-2. And just about everyone gets bored of the stuff they see all the time. Sure they would still look "good" just not as good.
yep even the last ten years one can fly veris RC craftd cause of the advansment in tiac> GPS . u can actuly set gps in a model to take off and lans in a foot are so of programed spot [WOW]
The concept of Fly By Wire computer control was something learned from the study of Nature. Aeronautical Engineers all agree that a Bumble Bee CANNOT fly because of its poor design. Yet, not only can it fly in forward flight, but it can Hover and Fly Backwards too! And why? Because its brain allows it to. And they do NOT listen to Nay Saying engineers. Stealth craft using facets use Fly by Wire. Think of the F-117 Nighthawk. Back in the early days of the 20th Century, the Aeronautical Engineers of the day all said powered controlled forward flight was impossible. Because they all flunked badly. It took a couple of Bicycle Building brothers to show Mankind the way.
The Horton brothers were NOT ahead of Northrop. The two programs develop simultaneously with no knowledge of each other.
Total legend keep up the good work son
Dig through YT for the flight tests, the Edwards crash, and behind the scenes disagreements before the cancellation of Northrop's Flying Wing. Explains much..
It has been an amazing journey. And it continues!
That blows me away that they such a modern design in 1929.
Jack Northrup was allowed to see the B 2 at Edward's air force base .
My belts are on the kitchen counter. Mike
Technology well ahead of its time and sadly ahead of fly by wire technologies time also, which would have made its inherent instability a positive advantage. B36 was an amazing stop gap but arguably only by way of its scale.
When I first saw a B-2 in person at an air show at Jeffco airport back in '99 or so, all I could think was that everyone in the USA should be able to have one, just as a benefit of being an American!!! ;-)
God, it's a beautiful plane!!!
When you do a documentary on technology, you need to make sure the facts are facts.
Not to take anything away from Jack Northrop, but he did not conceive the idea of a flying wing, Hugo Junker patented a flying wing design some 15 to 20 years before Northrop did.
It wasn't just Germany, but Britain and several other nation were designing flying wings concepts as far back as 1908.
How many of these others were successfully built and flown ?
@@garyhooper1820 Horten Ho 229
When I was working at a local Naval Air Station I went to a private briefing regarding Jack Northrop, during his retirement, his former company leadership treated him with a disrespect that was not deserved, I was surprised at that behavior. It did work out but only because some government personnel intervened in his last days.
Seeing that promo for the concept of a flying-wing airliner, I had to laugh when I saw the picture-windows. "Watch the world below!" Acrophobes would crap their pants. There's a big difference between looking out a window beside you and looking down past your feet to the ground. Heck, I'm not acrophobic in the least, and it gave me a bit of a start.
A bit of trivia about Glen Edwards: he was warned by one of his fellow test pilots NOT to stall the YB-49. I saw in interview with that pilot, and he said once the wing stalls, it flips nose-over-tail. He was only able to recover by applying full power to the engines on one side while idling the others. That put the aircraft in a recoverable state, but it was a narrow escape from certain death. But Edwards had stall-testing on the schedule, so that's what he did, unfortunately. (The problem persists to this day: stalling a flying wing is very nearly unrecoverable. Because of this, the fly-by-wire system on the B-2 simply does not allow a stall to occur in the first place.)
My friends and I saw the flying wing flying when we attended 118th Street Elementary School (Los Angeles) in late 1940. I guess it had taken off or was landing at Hawthorne airport.
We didn't know the significance of the flying wing at that time. But we looked up to count how many ket planes we saw during the day 😮
I have to take issue with your comment at 8:12; suggesting Germany’s “success“ at bombing Britain. I’m not sure how you are defining success in this case. While the Luftwaffe’s campaign was destructive and terrorizing, by no measure was it a success. Neither strategically or tactically. And fell far short of diminishing the moral of the British themselves. So where is the success you mention? In fact the apparent “strategy of the Luftwaffe was run incompetently by Goehring, attacking RAF vital assets, and switched, by order of the other incompetent, der fuehrer himself, to bombing British cities. It allowed the RAF to regroup and hand Germany a loss in the Battle of Britain. Success? I think not.
I find it strange that the German prototypes of the Horton Ho 229 were not even mentioned here, although it is known that these prototypes and the blueprints were the template for Northrop to build its own flying wing prototypes with jet engines such as the YB 49 flying wing.
Northrop began experiments and research into flying wings in the 1920s, way before the Ho229 was actually a thing. It would be better to say that the 229 was more of a contemporary rather than an inspiration for the YB-49 since the 49 was developed from the YB-35
You might also want to learn about Captain Geoffrey T. R. Hill.
there is a lot to learn from his research (also considering who he also worked with!)
ua-cam.com/video/y6fBiXoMv8M/v-deo.html
Glen Edwards pulled the wings off the YB-49. Pulled too many G's during a stall recovery.
Inexperienced test pilot.
15:15 ERROR.
B-35 wing had same payload at long range as B-36.
B-35 wing had higher speed, climb, and ceiling than first B-36 models.
23:10 That B-36 seems to be carrying a B-58 airframe minus the engines and probably a lot more. Does anyone know the story here?
Yeah I noticed the de engines B58 slung underneath too, maybe they were towing it to the junkyard .
Hope all the info here! is wright. cause this is one of the most informative docs i v seem ! and iv seen a ton.
Gorgeous
Awesome
I knew about this 1st flying wing? Was it stable to fly? The B-117 wasn't all that stable at 1st until they fixed the computer issues.
It was a interesting idea at the time, but frankly, the poor yaw stability of the plane and the fact it was nearly 100 mph slower than the B-47 _Stratojet_ even with the XB-49 jet vesrion pretty much doomed the idea at the time. It wasn't until modern fly-by-wire systems became available that flying wing design was made viable again with the B-2 bomber.
I was aware of the yaw problems. Didn't realize it was so slow.
I thought that one of the ideas is that the propeller behind everything is in slower air and hence even a propeller version can be as fast as a jet. And on a pusher bigger propellers mean more jaw stability and not less like when you pull on pods in front of the wings or -- shudder -- pull on the nose. I want to see a ( RC model ) with blades / fins on a rail that move on the trailing edge outwards / backwards, than rotate into horizontal orientation on the tip and in this orientation move back inside the wing. Slow movement to avoid transonic flow. No tips in faster than the sound. It sucks away bubbles on take-off to prevent stall. So actually, I want an RC model which flies high and fast .. touching transonic. The flying chain-saw.
Will we ever see a Swing Wing, flying wings???
The B36 was always soooo silly. We just dropped the bomb on Japan. Nuclear weapons don't have to be that heavy to deal tremendous damage. Why would you ever need more than 10,000 pounds of carrying capacity to deliver nuclear weapons?
please stop using multichannel codecs for processing mono audio. some of the audio in the last segment is awful.
My dad worked on B-36's and was under Curtis LeMay
25:30. B-36 could not originally carry atomic or hydrogen bombs. They had to go back to the factory twice for bomb bay modifications to carry them.
I saw it fly once North Las Vegas like no profile even from the ground till it banked looked like a sci fi movies too cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I ingot any idea why they melted them down
I wonder how many of these aviation legends would not get their resume past the guard bots of HR today
He had a blank check which also helps
I think it likely that an experimental flight of these was what Kenneth Arnold saw in 1947 The Horten types were known for instability in pitch which would accord with Arnold's "piepans skipping across water" observation Also the similar DH108 killed its pilot Geoffrey de Haviland Jr due to violent pitch oscillation.
Jack won in the end!!😎 6th gen jets proved that!!!🙏🏻
What do you do if you want to see down? Roll inverted? I love the comedy. =PC=
How did he possibly get the control surfaces to work in 1947 without modern microprocessors and software? You need computer assistance to keep a tailless plane like that in bounds. EDIT: okay I kept watching more. Right, the wing crashed because the wing isn't stable enough to work without computerized assistance. Instability when aided by computers is a good thing. It worked great on the F16. But sadly for Northrop there is no way you can make a wing work in 1947.
YB-49 was not unstable, Northrop installed a yaw damper on it nicknamed "little Herbert".
An early version of today's computer stabilization. According to test pilot Charles Tucker it was "rock solid". It met all USAF requirements.
Problem was US had little money in late 1940's, Boeing and Convair had much more capable salesmen.
So... who are E Lambert and J Key?
Forbes AFB, now Forbes Field, in Topeka Kansas was named in honor of Maj Daniel Forbes, who was killed with Maj, Glenn Edwards
The yellow flying wing shown in the video, the sole remaining Northrop flying wing, crashed and burned in 2019.
Dr. Lippisch did alot of work on delta wing aircraft early durring Germans re-armament in the 20's and 30's.
'Four 12,000 hp engines' at 17.00?
The flying wing got it's start in ww 2 Germany and the Horton's. They made the first radar deflecting plane, though it wasn't that great. Called the Horton Ho 229. There is one in the Smithsonian.
It was not stealth.
It didn't start with the Hortens.
It didn't start in WW2.
@@Leon_der_Luftige It was made with radar repellant glue so the attempt at stealth was there.
@@hiddentruth1982 No, it was not an attempt of stealth. It was a coincidence. Wanna know why? Because they never mentioned anything the like when the cold war started getting interesting despite Reimar Horten actually being desperate for an employer.
If he knew what he was doing, why didn't he claim any expertise concerning stealth?
Watch "Military Aviation History"'s video on the Ho229, please. It is going to clear everything up.
@@Leon_der_Luftige watch the video dark skies put out on it. You have to think that they wouldn't want it being public about any form of stealth abilities during the cold war as it would be something they wouldn't want the Russians knowing about. There was a lot of information that wasn't made public and still isn't today.
Even with the design, the 229 was only less stealthier than a 109 in terms of RCS. Northrop engineers tested the RCS by making a mockup made from the same materials as the 229 and saw that the design chosen by the Horten bros didn't make much of a difference.
I don't hear anything about stall or spin tests. Probably for good reasons. =PC=
Maybe that was the flying saucer they were seeing in the 50's.
The audio, very bad!
If the B2 is so invisible, then why has it been canceled, regardless of cost?
He may have been inspired to study aeronautics by birds but he didn't get the flying wing idea from them. Traditional aircraft are inspired by birds. Cockpit, fuselage, tail and two wings.
Actually, the yaw problems of the YB49 were solved by using a Norton bomb site as a yaw damper. The main reason the program for the YB49 was cancelled was because of the stealth characteristics of the airframe. It is why they wete ALL SCRAPPED by the military. It was too big of a risk to the destabilization of the cold war. Did you kkow that Jack Northrop presented the flying wing airframe design to NASA to be evaluated? Thats why it came back. The military knew what they had but the world wasn't ready for it
This Monstrosity never fired a shot in anger!- Michael McClary, Professor of Trumpet 🎺, Georgia Perimeter College & GSU😢
Fascinating however it misses out the other programmes to produce flying wings. It’s a missed opportunity as it identifies that other talented design team found solving the stability issues difficult eg the well known Hortens and the less well known Armstrong Whitworths (fortunately their prototypes included ejector seats which saved the life of the pilot in their 1st jet prototype). The flying wing concept was a dead end for both the Germans and British as it didn’t fit their geographic or strategic needs which could be met by more conventional designs whereas there was a compelling argument for the US.
The house I own was originally owned by the wife (widow) of Major Glenn Forbes, who died in the flying wing at Edwards AFB.
Funny how crewman misses flight that crashed then quickly got dead in an accident. Funny.
What about the Horton Brothers and their flying wing?
Shhhh... Tumbleweeds!
Because Northrop is the American stand-in for the true inventor of the flying wing.
It's an American disease of isolationist education & outlook plus telling its populace that they're the best country ever!
They need to appropriate inventions from other countries just to bolster themselves.
No one notices because who reads about foreigners? Or "Who reads?" might be closer to the truth.
For 5% of the Earth's population you seem to have invented so much!
And no-one outside your boundaries believes a fraction of it! M
Read the Miles M.52 story & you'll see how they do it with help from the wealthiest Home for the Elderly, the Senate.
Who and what was afraid of the Flying Wing? The destruction of all of the planes makes you question the decision?
Murr - Ock 😊
The XB-35 was a far more efficient Aircraft, had the contra-rotating drive system been perfected. The YB-49 would have never existed. The M9N @ chino has unfortunately crashed and been destroyed. With the lack of Nor-crafters, never flew again. I have many differences between history and this video. I will reference "The Wing Will Fly", a Discover Channel documentary. Lies are lies, and yes , I call you out for yours.
Pretty sad that the first use of the B2 bombed Serbia against international law.
What about Horten wing planes?? No mention?? What a partial documentary!!!
The flying wing was originally designed by the Germans the Horten HO 229.
Not really...Read all the informed comments before yours.
👍
Please🙏🙏🙏🙏
The main government decision maker that cancelled the flying wing ended up working for the convair people after politics! But I'm sure it wasn't political that cancelled the wing! 😂
Well what came first the chicken or the egg?
The demand to merge with Convair and his denial to do so is what doomed the company. Stuart Simington had the contract cancelled and all the wings were chopped up and destroyed.
Alot of things point to the crash of the YB-49 as sabotage Just think of how much more advanced our aviation could have been it not for Simington and the crash.
US flying wing designs owe a lot to German WW2 research, the Me163 Komet being the most spectacular example of an actual combat aircraft. Horten also did a lot of research. I understand Jack Northrop was shown the B-2 prototype as a late tribute to his work.
Greetings Greetings ◇
Well next to the emerging Airships ~●~
Interest!@!
Northrop should take a renewed Interest in the flying Wing
Commercial proposal also!@!
Horten brothers had the first flying wing before Northrup ever did
I doubt that, Northrop was working on his at the very beginning of ww2!! In fact his first one was prop driven!! Maybe Horton came up with the idea around the same time or shortly after but Northrop was first and wasn’t just a drawing.
@@Legion-xq8eo the Horten brothers had flying wings that could be flown before the end of WW2. After the Americans captured and sent them to the states one of our top test pilots even flew one.
Slither back under your rock now .
@@ToddBrooks-o5m go play in the road and make yourself useful for once in your life
Not correct. Northrop’s designs were the Horton brothers inspiration.
See the hortons werent the only ones.
17:40 ERROR!
No B-35's crashed! What dummy wrote this script?
What - NO mention of the B-21 Raider? Not even the weeniest of mentions?
And the Horten Brothers designs what? They had a full operational flying wing in 1945
B-36 was NOT a boondoggle
it made Symington (and friends) a few hundred million dollars, just as it was designed to do.
Ducati
They make nice motorcycles
have you forgotten rhe Horten brothers ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Read the comments before yours (and the redundant ones as well)
you are not answering my question., nor do i understand redundent ones.@@Dronescapes
Read other people's comments, you comment is repetitive. If you read them, you could have simply added your opinion to a discussion.
Hortens were supporting Adolf. Allied aircraft- invented by the WRIGHT brothers
Destroyed theLuftwaffe and would have blown the katzenjammer kids flying thing out of the air too.
12000hp is max 4300 .
copied from the Horten brothers.
+@rocketshipsoapys Northrop began building his YB-35 wing in 1941, long before the Horten brothers were given any permission to design their prototypes.
Hoten Brothers inspired B2! It wasn’t American ingenuity
Germany was the first to create and fly the wing. Not northrup hrumman
Horton brothers were years ahead of Northrop
😂 warriors ? Haha how ? From thousands of feet up ? Not exactly taking on a WARRIOR with a big axe or sword 🤔 laughable ...
great video ... absolutely awful ads... evony pc game has the worst ads!
Sorry for that, YT picks the ads you see
@@Dronescapes no apologies necessary i understand but YT has a way of farting up great content!
Wow! The flying wing is something Elon Musk can claim as his invention! We can expect a white paper on it soon.
😂
SO MUTCH CORRUPTION AND WASTING MONEY
..this guy put Lukes lightsaber on NVidia and Darth whoevers on AMD?...XDDD..thats why AMD doesnt sell..and why games have low pop....