"Horten 229 rebuilt" Topic

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Brought to you by the same people that bring you the stealth bomber.

I saw the episode the other night on TV.

Very interesting.

I doubt it would have won the war though, given the dire circumstances late in the game. Still, it is a beautiful little fighter, and the intercontinental bombers they were working on to bomb New York would have been dangerous as well, especially if they had been able to develop a nuclear bomb.

The Me-262 had a better chance of winning the war, if it had been introduced in mid-1943. In numbers, it would have severely impacted the daylight bombing campaign, and the Me-262 nightfighters were quite good as well. The 4 x 30mm cannons, and underwing rockets were devastating against heavy bombers.

Fortunately, it was delayed numerous times.

I just love how the guest misses obvious facts, such as the aircraft not coming along until late war, ignores the Northrop N9M and XB-35, etc. Of course, I expect that sort of inaccuracy from the typical talking head no matter the network and I count on today's infotainment programs messing something up.

There's a book on the Amerikabomber programs and it is pretty clear that the Germans really had no chance of achieving that goal through internal politics and short-sighted military planning.

Wyatt

Ah, but the idea that Northrup spent their own money to completely re-create the Ho229 and then sent it to their RCS test facility is interesting. I wonder, how'd they convince the Board of Directors to fund the project?

It probably written as a "black op" and gets funds through Congress as a "need to know" project. Then when they are done with it, they will donate it to the Smithsonian and get a tax break for it. Northrup will get paid to do the job and get a tax break at the same time.

-Binhan

A war winning weapon – oh yeah, and all they had to do was fly a few dozen feet across the channel. And a handful of fighter bombers – they were really going to swing the war tha nazi's way….can't imagine why the USA stupidly went down the Fortress/Superfortress/ Liberator route, when all it needed was some fighter bombers ("hey, put 500lbs on each of that Thuinderbolt's wings and the war's as good as won")

Being sarcastic, sorry. Interesting to see the mock-up though.

DVD sales of the show, and probably a book on the subject as well.

Did the Nazis know that the aircraft was "stealthy," and was that planned or just kismet?

Wow, that is seriously cool! Fantastic that they built it after all these years.

Did the Nazis know that the aircraft was "stealthy," and was that planned or just kismet?

My understanding is that the plane was 'discovered' to have a small radar profile after the fact, rather then being designed with it in mind.

-Will

I saw this too. I'm amazed at its flyability as I would think it would need avionics far more advanced than were available at the time. The Northrop B-49 Flying Wing was highly unstable and it was abandoned for this reason. Salut y'all!

Bruce the Texas Grognard

Well ANY aircraft flying a few feet over the sea is pretty invisible to radar--Even today!!
I think if the Germans had really pushed for jet fighters the British would quickly have caught up--While the Germans were ahead time wise we had the materials and resources to build reliable engines, and also the space (Canada and USA ) to train them safely…
If jets had been availabel in 43-44 you would have probably seen what remained of 8th Airforce switch to nightime operations and D-Day being a lot more touch and go..

"Northrop Grumman Corp. spent its own time and money using the original German blueprints to replicate the wood-and-steel-tube bomber, right down to its unique metallic glue and paint, at its facility in El Segundo, Calif."

I doubt they replicated the jet engines. Big difference in reliability though NG could use a modern engine rated at the same power.

If you watched the program, you'd have seen that they built a outward copy of the aircraft using modern materials and methods for such models. The use of special paints and such was their attempts to mimic the radar cross section that the aircraft 'might' have had. No engines were built, the interior fixings were never built (no cables, no gas tanks, no landing gear, no weapons, etc.).

What they ended up with was a 1:1 scale model in wood, glue, plastic, foam and such that was good for a number of radar tests and to hang in a museum.

Looked good, but not a recreation of the real thing (which I'm assuming would have cost millions).

Dan

It looks like it was a reasonable approximation of the real thing for test purposes. The clear issue was the cocpit.

Was it intended for radar deflection and absorbtion? Why make it out of wood if not? The Mosquito was known to be hard to detect by radar so I am not surprised if they weren't thinking in terms of RAM. The blended body of the craft is natural considering the design of the craft sprang from advanced glider designs where reducing drag was at a premium. Reiman Horton said he mixed charcoal dust in with the wood glue to absorb electromagnetic waves. One can imagine there was nice synergy between the desire for lower radar signature and other design aspects.

By the way, NG says the project to recreate the Ho 229 V3 only cost $250,000. If you want to see it, it is at the San Diego Air and Space Museum aerospacemuseum.org

It was built of wood (by the Germans) for the same reason they were using other such materials for everything at the end of the war: they'd run out of the good stuff. Wood planes, paper bandages, acorn for fuel, etc.

No need for thinking of stealthy aircraft, just what was available for a minor project that had limited backing.

Dan

You have to love photoshop! Just came across this!

picture

B2 Spirit, meet Ho 229!

Too bad for Howard Hughes that he didn't think of radar reflection when he had the spruce goose painted with aluminum dope and fitted with metal propellers. Maybe he could have sold it afterall?

Hi

War winner? Lets see, the germans didn't have themetallugy to make those turbines in mass in 43. Remember, for a comparison, no one did, the Brits supplied the russians with their first 5000 jet engines that would LIVE…in 47.

The Horton design that flew was the V9, and it crashed fatally on its third flight with an expert test pilot? Not likely that leads to a war winner either.

Assuming proper production…

In late '44, the germans were launching ca 400 fighters, of which 45 or so were jets to face 1200 bombers escorted by 1800 fighters.

The germans had a saying at the time "too many hounds are the death of a fox.".

Instead, if you want a "war winner" option, try this. In 40, the german production lines were working single 8 hour shifts of which only 6 were work hours. Imagine making bombers and fighters for the Battle of Britain with round the clock shifts.

Rocky

Good analysis Rocky!

Cool find, CorpsComander.

I'll bet that what happened to the pilot the crashed is that the plane tipped over onto a wingtip when the engine failed. Since there's no vertical stabilizer, once she starts sliding sideways through the air there's no way to recover the aircraft into controlled flight, period. The B2s are limited to about 60* bank for the same reason.

Oh, the RCS model *should* have had a full set of flight controls installed, since radar-transparent wings would let the cables and hinges reflect. Also, the cockpit needed to be completely modeled, because it tends to become a large radar-reflecting cavity unless you put some metal film on the canopy.

*blink* wow, I know entirely too much about RCS controls.

Rocky has a very valid point. Unless the Germans could have deployed significant numbers of Ho229s in 1942 or 1943, it's still not going to change anything for them. The only problem I see with his analysis is that *if* Germany went to a 24/7 production cycle, they would have run out of resources faster. As it was, they had too many projects competing for too little resources. Doubling or tripling production capacity would have meant a war-materiel shortage in about 1942.

Hi

I was channeling Galland who I talked with some decades ago. He felt that during BOB if there had been more fighters it would have been "too many hounds" for the british.

I don't really know. While I have lectured on this stuff, the short version is that you don't see me usually post on "what if" threads. In that, what I know is that the reasons are often hidden that make the "what ifs" impossible. Like the metallurgy for a reliable turbine.

As for the 229 crash, it could have been as simple as the usual problem with flying wings. They are unstable in pitch and in landing, on the edge of stall, there is rarely decent warning for the pilot. It feels good, then BAM.

Rocky

Hi

I was channeling Galland who I talked with some decades ago. He felt that during BOB if there had been more fighters it would have been "too many hounds" for the british.

In this case, the most 109s were built in the last two years and, thus, it wasn't a resource problem, but a willingness to go to a war economy.

I don't really know. While I have lectured on this stuff, the short version is that you don't see me usually post on "what if" threads. In that, what I know is that the reasons are often hidden that make the "what ifs" impossible. Like the metallurgy for a reliable turbine.

As for the 229 crash, it could have been as simple as the usual problem with flying wings. They are unstable in pitch and in landing, on the edge of stall, there is rarely decent warning for the pilot. It feels good, then BAM.

Rocky

That's what she said.

Kind of dull show frankly. Yeah it soudned cool, But….

Lots f wasted time on recreations (oh yeah I get to see it towed out of the hanger by a Kenttenkrad, big whoop).

What I DID NOT hear addressed were the most important points:

1. was it designed with radar stealth in mind? (note, the guys started the idea in the 1930's).

2. Was wood used to be stealthy, or just because it was a good way to build a plane when you had limited aluminum and metal working tools.

3. No one ever really asled if there was any connection at all to the current stealth project, and this recovered war trophy.

And of course you can't have a great fight scene around one with no propellers to chop up Nazi bad guys.

[q]Was it intended for radar deflection and absorbtion? Why make it out of wood if not? The Mosquito was known to be hard to detect by radar so I am not surprised if they weren't thinking in terms of RAM. [/q]

the Mossie was easy to spot on radar – things like engines, instruments, metal undercart, armament (bombs, guns, ammunition), piping, wiring gave it plenty of RCS.

Assumptions that it was more difficult to detect because the airframe was wood are just wish-fulfillment.

Hi

1)no

2)No, it was non-strategic.

3)No, the current stealth project (current?) starts with Jack Northrop and his flying wings back in the 40s.

Grin, simple enough?

Rocky

Yes and no, Aloysius. Yes, the engines, etc. are there to reflect radar waves. There's just an awful lot *less* surface area to reflect.

One of the early stealth aircraft (lockheed project from Vietnam, I forget the program name) lead to the discovery of radar-transparency. Everyone knew that fiberglass aircraft were hard to detect, but when they put a fiberglass skin on an aircraft with metal structural members, it had a *significantly larger* RCS than the unmodified aircraft.

When you build the entire aircraft out of fiberglass (or wood), it's RCS is naturally low. In fact, with careful engineering, you can minimize the amount of radar-absorbent material you need to use. Have you read 'Clear and Present Danger', with the Stealth bomb? It's the same idea. If your area that *can* reflect radar is only 5m^2, while your airframe is 10m^2, that's effective stealth.

3. No one ever really asled if there was any connection at all to the current stealth project, and this recovered war trophy.

Only to the extent that Jack Northrup was interested in flying wings. Since this project dated from the 1930s, and the Horten brothers came to the US after the War, there is probably some idea transference between the Ho229 and the various Northrup flying wings.

Remember, the first goal of the flying wings was to reduce *DRAG* to make better performance.

Certainly there's less area to reflect if you make the airframe out of wood.

but it doesnt' matter if the remainder is still heaps – the difference between a massive reflection and merely a big one is probably insufficient to matter.

The multiple reflecting surfaces from internal components such as those I listed above are probably generating most of the radar return anyway.

I too have read that the Mosquito had a weaker than normal radar return, since it was made of wood.

I imagine the pilots and ground crews using radar of the day, and writing about it later would know what they are talking about.