Horten Ho 229

Neutral Zone

Neutral Zone

Junior Member
Another factor that would have prevented the 229 being a factor in WW2 was that it was by all accounts quite a difficult aircraft to fly. A problem that limited the development of flying wings until computerised fly by wire avionics became available. Had the Nazis put it into production its likely that it would have been involved in a lot of training and operational accidents, particularly if they were putting inexperienced pilots in them, by 1945 the Luftwaffe was running out of them almost as fast as it was of fuel. It was an unbelievably cool looking aircraft and a great technical achieve not but the money spent on it would have been far better used on other projects.
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
When the USAF was evaluating the YB35 &YB49 one of the problems with tailless flying wings became apparent. If the aircraft is oriented so the wings are beyond something like 60* it will start to slide out of control. B2 and most modern types fbw prevent the aircraft from such a turn.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
Neutral Zone said:
Another factor that would have prevented the 229 being a factor in WW2 was that it was by all accounts quite a difficult aircraft to fly. A problem that limited the development of flying wings until computerised fly by wire avionics became available. Had the Nazis put it into production its likely that it would have been involved in a lot of training and operational accidents, particularly if they were putting inexperienced pilots in them, by 1945 the Luftwaffe was running out of them almost as fast as it was of fuel. It was an unbelievably cool looking aircraft and a great technical achieve not but the money spent on it would have been far better used on other projects.
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Not correct. According to Prof. Karl Nickel, involved with the Horten's, flying the later Horton gliders was particularly easy. In his book about tailless aircraft he writes that he made a flight of 9 hours with one and was much less tired then after flying a glider with a conventional configuration.
The accident that killed Robert Kronfeld in 1948 in GAL 56 ( TS507 ) was, if I interpret correctly that Capt. Eric Brown writes about it, caused by a wrongly chosen center of gravity.
In short to design a well controllable flying wing you need experience not computerised fly by wire.
 
S

Sczepan

Senior Member
VIP Professional
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MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
rhino123 said:
I have watched the clip before and it always amaze me at the level of technological advancement of the German Nazis.

Imagine a stealth fighter/ bomber in WWII when radar system are at its infancy... that would easily have change the course of war if the Germans could pump out great enough numbers fast enough.

Luckily they couldn't...
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They can try to design all those fancy wunderwaffen they want, but without enough gas to fuel them, and the Red Army already imposed a "ring of steel" around Berlin, they'll never made it in time (as in, with significant numbers and with several operational outfits using them) before "that Bohemian corporal" shot himself anyway.

But in the end, the flying wing is too complex a design that it needs to wait for the advent of computer flight control systems to make one really flyable.
 
TerraN_EmpirE

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
It took Jack Northrop the American aircraft designer and inventor and founder of the todays Northrop Grumman corporation to take the idea of the flying wing though its evolution, inventing and building the YB38, the modern computers and radars, and finally even though it was after the old man had retired and moved his company to build the true flying wing we know and in some cases fear as the B2 Spirit. And today that model of flying wing and its series is as state of the art as bombers get until the next flying wing bombers come online in the USA and Russian federation.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
MwRYum said:
But in the end, the flying wing is too complex a design that it needs to wait for the advent of computer flight control systems to make one really flyable.
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Just as other aircraft of the time were flyable without the use of computer flight control systems so was the flying wing. The other Horten flying wings were perfectly flyable. The German developers just lacked time and of course reliable engines.
Germany did develop the Me-163 rocket fighter that lacked horizontal tail planes and flew at near sonic speed, to just more than 1000 km/h, and was well controllable. It too was handicapped by engine unreliability and also by occasionally blowing up when the landing, as a glider, was somewhat hard.
 
MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
delft said:
Just as other aircraft of the time were flyable without the use of computer flight control systems so was the flying wing. The other Horten flying wings were perfectly flyable. The German developers just lacked time and of course reliable engines.
Germany did develop the Me-163 rocket fighter that lacked horizontal tail planes and flew at near sonic speed, to just more than 1000 km/h, and was well controllable. It too was handicapped by engine unreliability and also by occasionally blowing up when the landing, as a glider, was somewhat hard.
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Even when it's controllable, contemporary controlling method at that time means it'd restrict its flight profile to a fraction of the airframe's full potential. Though of course gas supply and engine handicap plays the most of its downfall.

The engine on the Me-163 is utter nightmare, it kills you either by fuel got mixed when it was not supposed to and kaboom behind you, or literally dissolve you if there's a leak...it just showed how much of a dire strait the Third Reich was in if they'd embrace such death-trap a technology as their wunderwaffen.
 
D

delft

Brigadier
MwRYum said:
Even when it's controllable, contemporary controlling method at that time means it'd restrict its flight profile to a fraction of the airframe's full potential. Though of course gas supply and engine handicap plays the most of its downfall.

The engine on the Me-163 is utter nightmare, it kills you either by fuel got mixed when it was not supposed to and kaboom behind you, or literally dissolve you if there's a leak...it just showed how much of a dire strait the Third Reich was in if they'd embrace such death-trap a technology as their wunderwaffen.
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Every aircraft at the time had a restricted flight profile when compared with modern counterparts.
My point about Me-163 is that it was aerodynamically good enough to be used as a fighter aircraft while reaching transsonic speeds ( and it didn't need a horizontal tail plane, like the Horton Go-229 ). No other aircraft at the time was able to do that so the German aerodynamicists were really good. Many of them ended up in GB or US after 1945 as leaders in their subject.
 
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