One of the fathers of the #Northrop B-2 Spirit bomber, Jack Northrop's Flying Wing [VIDEO]
Posted by Atellani@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 143 comments
Mirda76de@reddit
The real father of B2... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-EzlsLCUy0&pp=ygUkSHJ0bWFuIGJyb3RoZXJzIGZseWluZyB3aW5nIGFpcnBsYW5l
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
There's always one with this nonsense.
Mirda76de@reddit
Oh Americans... you funny guys... In 2025 probably still believe that Wright brothers were the first ones... Funny guys indeed... So- The German Horten Ho 229 flew complete flying model during the last days of World War II buy first flight test were in 30's, and was the first flying wing to use a jet engine. And yes- Northrop used solutions and model of Ho 229 in it's test models with the jet engine. When we talk about the optional model as delta or wing aircraft, also, Northrop used earlier models and patents. The concept of the flying wing was born somewhere around 1875-76 when French engineers Alphonse Pénaud and Paul Gauchot filed a patent for an aero-plane or flying aircraft powered by two propellers and with all the characteristics of a flying wing as we know it today. The Soviet Boris Ivanovich Cheranovsky began testing tailless flying wing gliders in 1924. After the 1920s, Soviet designers such as Cheranovsky worked independently and in secret under Stalin. With significant breakthrough in materials and construction methods, aircraft such as the BICh-3, BICh-14, BICh-7A became possible. Men like Chizhevskij and Antonov also came into the spotlight of the Communist Party by designing aircraft like the tailless BOK-5 (Chizhevskij) and OKA-33 (the first ever built by Antonov) which were designated as "motorized gliders" due to their similarity to popular gliders of the time. The BICh-11, developed by Cheranovsky in 1932, competed with the Horten brothers H1 and Adolf Galland at the Ninth Glider Competitions in 1933, but was not demonstrated in the 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin. All this models wee later used by Northrop. But overall fact is the Horten model is the real father of all wing models because it was the very first aircraft that was basicaly completely stabile in it's flight and maneuvering with significant speed.
Funny side note- A friend father, American back in nineties, was aviation historian and he always claimed that Northorp in private always admitted that The Northrop YB-49 is 80 percent Hortens work.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
What a load of nonsense. And yeah, the Wrights were the first to fly a powered and controllable airplane.
Mirda76de@reddit
Some people from New Zealand and Brazil don’t agree with you…
Shaun_Jones@reddit
That Brazilian guy made his first flight of a few dozen seconds the year after the Wrights did a public exhibition flight of almost an hour.
IamLeRanger@reddit
Yeah, they're wrong
theanedditor@reddit
Funny how this one has different line streaking to the other one you posted today? See mate, you give yourself away with your fake AI bs...
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
While this video is interesting, I think you need to make it known and obvious that the video is doctored beyond just coloring. As AI manufactures more and more content it will become increasingly harmful to have videos like this floating around pretending to be primary sources.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
AI did not "manufacture" it. The video, which usually has a pretty terrible quality and looks red, was transformed into B&W, colorized, and upscaled, but the content is still the original one; it just (overall) looks better, at least I think so. Manufacturing is, in my opinion, another thing (singing kittens come to mind.) Sometimes it seems that this is similar to the debate between vinyl purists and MP3 (or else) users. Here is where the video comes from. Let me know if you truly prefer the existing one: https://www.threads.com/@dronescapesvideos/post/DLTJQ-Cykth?xmt=AQF0SHG7Ki6lgOeCD0bycY6KE8mFx3CZBoH-aXe33loLyg
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
I Do not care about the color. My gripe is entirely about your use of AI upscaling without discloser.
Each year there will be exponentially more AI upscaled videos created and put out onto the internet, and the only way we can preserve history is if people like you take the smallest amount of responsibility and simply label what you post as AI.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
Can colorizing, and/or upscaling, truly be considered A.I. when the content is original? If so, does an image colorized from B&W by hand cross the line, although 99% of the time it is obvious without needing a description? Is a digital camera we use, since it is not film, but it is more and more processed by algorithms, especially on phones, a form of A.I., therefore, we should always label all our images as A.I.? It certainly makes plenty changes to original image, and it does so through software. Should anyone using a spell checker, or a translator disclose it? After all, it does change the content; therefore, it does not preserve the pure thought of the author with software intervention. Colorizing and upscaling, I think, is borderline philosophical, but it is indeed an interesting debate.
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
Reality check: Changing the color does not create new details, AI upscaling by absolute necessity must create new details to make a blurry pictures more clear. These new details have some probability of being incorrect.
Therefore: I believe Images that have been upscaled by AI should not be confused with original videos, therefore they should be clearly labeled.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
So do the ubiquitous filters, or the algorithms used by most cameras, especially camera phones that output billions of photos and videos daily, which also end up on social media. My question is: Should we label them as AI as well? Have we been living in an A.I.-perceived reality for the last few years, even before the A.I. police took over? Again, it is a philosophical question... Of course, A.I. will try to re-create details that would otherwise be a blurry frame, but did it add trees or clouds that were not there? No, because that is not what the upscale model is instructed to do, and if it does so, it fails the task, which is the upscaling (and later colorization). Needless to say, unlike current cameras that modify photos, eventually A.I. is going to know exactly what the aircraft looked like, and it is going to give you a more realistic version of unwatchable footage, at least that's my guess. I regard that as an improvement, and I just find it fascinating; the A.I. Police is bound to scream bloody murder, that's a given. Time will tell what is acceptable. For the time being, I would personally focus on the pervasive 100% fake content that is used for nefarious purposes each second of the day, and treat upscaling as what it is. I still think it is a more enjoyable footage, and I can certainly see the proper plane better than the old, blurry, and red footage. I certainly do not think I am seeing a B-29 or Patton instead of Northrop, so I am personally not being deceived, but obviously, you think otherwise...Opinions. By the way, was Forrest Gump a pre-AI sort of analogical experiment? Should we crucify George Lucas for making digital versions of the original film, and analyze pixel by pixel to make sure it is identical to the original? What is the meaning of life?
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
Why are you soo opposed to labeling the videos you post as using AI upscaling?
Atellani@reddit (OP)
I never said I am opposed, I would probably, if any, label them as upscaled and colorized, and when "colorized" is available, I already label it, usually it is images. Given that my opinion is obviously different from yours, I cannot understand why I should conform to your opinion, which I do not agree with, other than minimally, and that's why I asked questions that you do not seem to want to answer. I tried to veer from the A.I. Police to something more interesting, but that did not happen for lack of engagement on your part. Given the number of comments and the fact that people mostly discussed the subjects of the video, such as Flying Wing, Northrop, rather than the intricacies and policies of the A.I. Police, it seems to me that Reddit users can discern the basics by themselves, without the need for "educating" them. Perhaps to most of them, it is obvious that the video is upscaled and colorized without military enforcement. Given that the video is a popular (on a couple of threads, it seems) and that the discussions are actually interesting, if you care to read them, and not razor focused on your chosen topic, which does not even appear to be that popular in terms of votes, I would assume that users are either OK with the video, or they might actually appreciate the upscale, the colorization, or maybe both. I don't believe many of them are tricked into some kind of A.I. trap (if the video even fits the widespread definition of A.I. as most interpret it. If a democratic discussion is still a decent indication of civility (perhaps not for much longer), then I would focus more on how interesting the Flying Wing was. By the way, some even expressed appreciation for the upscale. I think we both covered this enough, and I am not even really asking you to actually answer any of my general questions, and maybe elevate the discussion, as I see that it would not go anywhere, given the short and monotone responses. As you can see, I tried to expand the discussion and make it interesting, but it does not seem to work, so perhaps let's focus on the aircraft, which is immensely more interesting than the repetitive responses, and also my useless attempts at having a more robust discussion
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
Look man I quite honesty do not care about you or anyone else using AI to upscale images and I do not want to have an conversation about the wider topic.
Since my first comment (which I will admit used fairly charged language) my point has been that having non-labeled AI videos floating around will corrupt truth and should be taken more seriously.
I can understand why to you my staunch refusal to stop harping on about my main point is annoying, but from my perspective you keep dodging the question to talk about philosophy or comparing AI-upscaling to sound and video compression, (side tangent: I can appreciate the how those two feel similar, but they are literally opposites of each other)
PS, please use paragraphs, without them your reply's are hard to parse.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
Wow, you managed to still not address much, yet you managed to dissect the channel. You have a lot of time on your hands; perhaps you could use it to be more analytical of your extreme views. As for the channel, just so you know, it supports a wide number of former producers, the ones that have been abandoned by cable TV many years ago, and the real owners of the content. They all receive good royalties each month, and one of them is the pioneer who started it all back in the day. He is almost 80, and nobody cares about the mountain of material he produced in the last few decades, but we do. Unfortunately, many times the broadcast Betacam tapes are in terrible condition, but he has a goldmine of material, and much of it has never been seen before. The same goes for a British producer, a good friend, and the 16mm films that we had Pinewood Studios in the U.K. digitize (I guess that could qualify as A.I. by your standards), so that people can see listen to original, never seen before interviews with the likes of Frank Whittle, and Hans Von Ohain, without speculating on obscure blogs or Wikipedia about them. Perhaps we could mention the NARA archivist that we pay and support to retrieve videos that nobody cared to digitize before, for the benefit of all, and before someone dismantles the National Archives for good, which is precisely what is happening these days. Perhaps we should mention some American producers and how, with them, we supported Oshkosh behind the scenes, also by giving them much more visibility on YT than they ever did. That exposure attracts sponsors for those events, and without sponsors... No events for anyone! Just to confirm how biased you are, I did a one-tenth-of-a-second search on the channel, and looked for "upscaled" in the titles... I got literally 116 results, so I guess your forensic analysis is a bit sloppy, but that was to be expected, wasn't it? While I thought that having a civilized debate about your very personal interpretation of A.I. could be interesting, I am not interested in getting into a misinformed, useless discussion aimed at not addressing a single topic in response to a discussion you started. If your ultimate orgasm is making an A.I. Police monotone statement, you made your point, so be happy with the neurons it fired for you. You made your monolithic statement over and over again. I always thought that a flexible mind and the ability to debate is also what got us to 2025, I guess I was wrong. I addressed your rock-solid credo by also expanding the concept past the one-sided radical view; you just do not seem to have picked up on any of the variants. Your view does not seem to be popular, so ask yourself why that is, unless you think that everyone besides you is an idiot (which is probably exactly what you think.) I really think this is over. I suggest you keep being the A.I. Police, and if we ever post anything, be the C.S.I. and add your precious labels that to most are obvious to begin with. I need to make a productive video call to a producer in Canada before an entire archive might be lost forever, so forgive if I leave you with your precious labels.
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
"As for the channel, just so you know, it supports a wide number of former producers"
Prove it.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
No problem, write us (the email can be found on the channel), send us your details (name, ID, phone number,...The basics), and we will prepare for you an agreement/NDA (for obvious reasons.) Then we will gladly show you a ton of email exchanges, or perhaps wire or PayPal transfers to producers in the U.S., Canada, U.K., if you prefer. We will also ask you, once you have seen the obvious, to come back to this thread and acknowledge how wrong you were. This is truly infantile.
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
I'm not going to give my name out to some stranger on the internet, but you know what man I agree this really is infantile and I am sorry, I got too lost in the sauce.
I think it was when you started referring to me as the A.I. Police" that I started losing the plot. Because I am not arguing against your use of AI, I'm arguing against your undisclosed use of AI because I think its harmful to the historical record.
But ultimately, I must admit that your channel does seem to often* distinguish when a video has been modified with AI.
*I have found examples of videos labeled as: Restored, 4K and HD which were 100% upscaled with AI, Prime example: the round dots on the side of this helicopter move around and change shape for example: https://youtu.be/o0Z2iRH9W6Y?t=574
Ultimately I have come to understand that like me you deeply care about preserving history, so I dont understand why you dont agree with me and, if nothing else put "some footage was upscaled with AI" in the description of your videos.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
I will just address the Heli bit, as that is the most interesting. That series was made by one of the Producers I referred to. His name is Phil, an amazing guy who knew everyone in the aviation business. That series, which was semi-rejected by most networks when he tried to license it, was in terrible condition. They messed up the tracks in the broadcast tapes he has, and back in the day, there was no such thing as digital, so the tapes are all that is left. If there were any "good" Betacam tapes, they probably ended up in a landfill by now. The same goes for the X-Planes series, also produced by him, and the list goes on. Unless these videos are somehow preserved for posterity, give it another decade, and they will be gone for good, as mediums, unlike books, have evolved at the speed of light, and perhaps people did not realize how important it was to preserve them. We offered to travel across the world and spend months porting those tapes to digital, but it is a monstrous and very expensive task, so for now we rely on his goodwill to take the Betacam original tapes to a local shop, but I am sure something better could be done. I'd rather have a program upscale those tapes than nothing. Many times, we also adjust the ratio, as some of the videos were stretched to appease the networks. If we had a few million, rather than licensing, we would make a bulk offer to retrieve everything for posterity, and work on it for the next few years, but for now, we have to be happy with these tiny "drops." On the other hand, in Britain, both Whittle and Von Ohain's rare, never seen before, raw interviews were in great shape, and the world can now have a much better idea of the invention of the turbojet, right from the protagonists. We also purchased all the footage, including Eric "Winkle" Brown's, so we now own both Betacam tapes, 16mm, and digital versions of an important piece of history. Restoring that footage also gave birth to a new series, which is in the works, so in many ways, we also resurrected a production company. We also made sure that millions would learn about Sir Frank Whittle's story. It is what it is, we have to deal with what we have, and with the limited resources we can spare, but it is always a bit of a treasure hunt, which is a lot of fun.
YouMadeMeGetThisAcco@reddit
Waitwaitwait, now I feel incredibly stupid, but so that thing did actually fly?! I was a billion percent sure it never did and at best there was a mockup, I thought this vid was AI first haha! (Yes I was lazy and didnt really look into it) Damn, flying wings just got a little bit cooler!
sirguinneshad@reddit
The 1/3rd mock-up was flying all the way untill the 2020's. The last surviving and flying N-1M crashed unfortunately. If you can go to the air museum in Chino Hills, it's top notch
YouMadeMeGetThisAcco@reddit
Damn, impressive. I'll try to never assume knowing things again haha! Good to know, that goes on the bucket list!
CatThe@reddit
If Horten wasn't on the losing side he'd be right pissed at this title.
sirguinneshad@reddit
Jack Northrop had powered flying wing designs before the Horten brothers data even came into Allied hands. They were concurrently developing flying wings with Jack's first design flying in 1929. The data pretty much just confirmed what he already knew.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
no he did not. In fact Northrop actually never had a pure flying wing and always used vertical stabilizers.
And Northrup never managed to solve the vertical stabilizing issues in general, unlike the Hortons.
sirguinneshad@reddit
Yes, he did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_N-9M see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_N-1M and both of those flew before the Horten brother's data was available to him. Notice, no vertical stabilizers. They are real flying wings as was the XB-35 which began construction in 1944.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
dude, the stabilitzers were bult in the naceless here, that does not make them go away
sirguinneshad@reddit
So any vertical surface is a stabilizer? Including a fixed surface to support the long propeller shafts? Next thing you'll be calling wing fences vertical stabilizers too. The Hortens never tested their designs much further than gliders, with their only powered design the H.IX crashing a few short months after powered flight. It was being rammed through development more due to the Emergency Fighter Program than because "they solved having no vertical stabilizers". It was a handful to fly too. Also, neither one got snatched up by any of the victorious allies despite them trying to sell their expertise. BTW, look up photos of their glider designs, you'll find surfaces that can qualify as vertical stabilizers just as much as the fixed nacelles, if not more so.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
dude, compare that to other flying wings and you have your answer. the cope is real here.
sirguinneshad@reddit
I agree...
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
Dude's just another clueless wehraboo.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
..said the burgerboo.
sirguinneshad@reddit
Maybe you should stop parroting "Hitler's Secret Stealth Bomber" propaganda and just take a few things in. The Horten Brothers never had a working, flying, self propelled design before Jack Northrop. They even acknowledged that their previous powered gliders just added to the flight duration over being self-sufficient. A little trivia fact for you. Their flying wing design that was jet powered had a wingspan of 55 feet, in 1944. In 1944 the XB-35 was under construction with a wingspan of 172 ft. The YB-49 had a wingspan of 172 ft. The B-2 has a wingspan of (drumroll please) 172 ft.
Even then, the Hortens had their payload mounted externally on their designs, along with the exposed jet fan turbines, would completely negate any stealth characteristics. All contributed some, but it's only in a wheraboo fever dream that you think some glider pilots figured out flying wings and stealth based off decades old reminiscing of a failed glider pilot over a well documented pioneer. I'm being a bit harsh here but Jack Northrop is indeed a father of the B-2 and has a far better claim than the Hortens. Both gave some, some gave more.
Plus before you go off again about vertical stabilizers, Northrop used fixed ones with flaperons controlling the direction of the plane. The Hortens never reached the speed or endurance under powered flight he did. Their jet powered design was so poorly balanced the test pilot had to fight the plane the entire time in order to not climb. And the last Argentinian design Emil made had vertical stabilizers so they obviously didn't figure out the perfect solution before fly by wire was a thing either.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
It's like arguing with a flat-Earther, isn't it!
sirguinneshad@reddit
It is. Some things get under my skin more than others. The flying wing predates the Wright Brothers. That's why I appreciate the og post. Northrop was one of the "fathers", but not the only one. The only more criminal dismantling of a project publicly known to me is the CF-105 Arrow. Such a beautiful plane. Too bad Sputnik killed it the same day it rolled out
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
The two aviation topics that bug me the most are the flying wings, and the Hughes Hercules.
sirguinneshad@reddit
So, did the Spruce Goose actually fly? Just out of curiosity?
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
I say yes. Others say no because it was still in ground effect. The arguments tend to be about whether it was able to fly out of ground effect or not, and why did Hughes never fly it again (I have thoughts about all of this).
It's a much more sophisticated and carefully engineered airplane than most people understand.
sirguinneshad@reddit
The ground effect does stir up controversy. I think Howard Hughes bit off more than he could chew with it. It's an incredible plane for sure. Just wish I had seen it.
It was way past due and it probably could have flown higher and further, I just think Hughes was more interested in getting the government off his back then actually proving it worked.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
Here's what I wrote about it in another sub:
I've been studying and thinking about the Hughes Hercules for years, partly research for a model and partly because I'm fascinated by it. Anyway:
On that day, why didn't Hughes fly it farther? Two reasons I think. One, fuel. He'd been tooling around Long Beach harbor for some time and didn't begin with a full fuel load, so I don't think he had enough gas to take it for a proper flight. Two, I watched an interview on the old Tom Snyder late night show when he spoke to one of the engineers who helped design the Herculese and was on board that day. He said the controls (which were boosted hydraulically) were overboosted making the airplane very sensitive to control inputs to the extent it would have been easy to overstress it. He said that after the flight, that was modified to a more reasonable level.
I believe Hughes fully intended to fly it again. It was his baby. Many modifications were performed including the cockpit layout. But of course by then, he and everyone else knew there was no military or commercial future for the Hercules. And his mental health was already declining. The OCD he'd always suffered from was getting worse, and his addiction to painkillers (from his lengthy hospitalization after the XF-11 crash) was coming on strong. I just don't think he could stay focused anymore.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
Vertical surfaces do not negate the flying wing status, except for pedantic purists like yourself. Nor did the Hortens completely solve their stability issues.
dv666@reddit
Horten was a talentless charlatan. Nothing he ever designed worked.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
That's not so. The TWO HORTEN BROTHERS were talented and innovative engineers. They had flying wings that flew nicely, both gliders and powered.
BUT they were working on the same problem as Jack Northrop at roughly the same time. A flying wing is an obvious solution to certain aeronautical problems. The were working independantly from each other; neither copied the other.
ghostpanther218@reddit
This one was actually featured in War of the Worlds as the Thunderchild bomber that dropped the hydrogen bomb on the martians.
el__gato__loco@reddit
Huh, TIL they 'updated' Thunderchild from the book into a nuclear bomber in the film! Thanks.
ghostpanther218@reddit
Unfortunately, it's only named that in the novelization based on that movie (which itself was based on a book). But yeah, I like that detail.
el__gato__loco@reddit
I found another reference! I was watching the second to last episode of Picard and there's a scene that shows the entire fleet, including an "NCC-63549 Thunderchild" - and it turns out this ship has been at a couple of Borg "invasion" events...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShittyDaystrom/comments/1jfm5bc/the_akiraclass_uss_thunderchild_is_revealed_to/
Impossible_Box9542@reddit
It was an atomic bomb. At the time of we didn't have a hydrogen bomb that could be dropped by a bomber. The original H-bomb, Mike, was tested in 1952. It weighed 62 tons! The yield was 10 megatons. The fireball was 3 miles wide.
Awkward-Event-9452@reddit
That thing was a death trap.
PastEntrance5780@reddit
Wonder if the radar cross section was significantly lower and they had a “wow” moment.
Will_at_Worlds_End@reddit
It's all AI.
LordofNarwhals@reddit
Get your eyes checked.
0ne-man-shooter@reddit
It actually is AI upscaled: https://www.threads.com/@dronescapesvideos/post/DLTJQ-Cykth?xmt=AQF0SHG7Ki6lgOeCD0bycY6KE8mFx3CZBoH-aXe33loLyg#:\~:text=Pre%20restoration%20part%20of%20the%20video%3A
Which is why in some shots details are missing or contorted.
LordofNarwhals@reddit
Yes, but it's certainly not "all AI".
(and most of that karma is from memes 5+ years ago when I was studying at University)
Will_at_Worlds_End@reddit
Rude much?
LordofNarwhals@reddit
Just sick of so many people claiming that everything is AI (especially when it clearly isn't).
PlanesOfFame@reddit
Nah its a Northrop YB-49, the guy Jack tried hard to sell it and the air force wouldn't buy it, took a whole new design evolution for them to finally budge and now we can devastate any country on the globe unseen with the B-2 spirit. We already have a new one called the B-21 Raider, next in the line. And there's an old one, the B-35, that came before all of these. They all look pretty darn similar having only wings, and the guy is famous for that type of thing. I got to see his n9m fly at an airshow before it was lost. Truly unforgettable
Happily-Non-Partisan@reddit
Saved Lockheed from bankruptcy, lived long enough to see his flying wing concept applied to a production aircraft, and died before he could see his company devolve into a money laundering scheme.
RIP Jack Northrop
Tre-k899@reddit
German knowhow
Happily-Non-Partisan@reddit
The Germans had nothing to do with Northrop's efforts.
For the record, the Horten 229 sucked.
HuntSafe2316@reddit
Wait, what???
luvsads@reddit
What once made LM a titan doesn't really exist anymore (management and drive). The joke is that now they just extract public funds and delay
lavardera@reddit
confused –– Northrup merged with Grumman, not Lockheed-Martin-RCA....
Lampwick@reddit
Yeah, these people need to check their carbon monoxide monitors. Why are they talking about LockMart in reference to Jack Northrop? He worked for Lockheed long enough to design the Lockheed Vega, but left in 1929. Flying wing era Northrop had no relation to Lockheed, and even less relation to Lockheed-Martin.
HuntSafe2316@reddit
After looking at their proposal for the Stinger, I just might agree
luvsads@reddit
Exactly lmao
I work with a handful of ex-LM engineers, and they all say it's a husk of itself now. It's really sad to hear, personally, given how much old LM and especially Skunkworks contributed. Saving grace is that we have companies like Anduril and Shield AI now
I_RATE_HATS@reddit
I saw this in a documentary as a kid - there was also an interview with Northrop which was really interesting... imma find it.
oh here it is. Northrop's interview starts at about 13 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui_o257DZE0
MrAmagi@reddit
Looks like the Horten 229
Peachy_Biscuits@reddit
Considering this predated the horton, it would be more correct to say that the Horten 229 looks like the YB-49
Hot_Dog_Gamer24@reddit
Every flying wing looks like the Horten 229
Gammelpreiss@reddit
Unfortunately these Northrup wings were never true flying wings and always had the need for vertical stabilizers. Yet with even those the planes were too unstable to be put into service.
The only ppl who managed to get the concept working are the Horton Brothers and it shows if you overlay the mich later B2 spirit shape over that of the Ho229. It is almost a perfect fit.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
Nonsese. Stabilizers do not negate the flying wing designation. Horten was trying to design a fighter which has less need for hands off stability than a bomber (Hortens bomber was never built, much less tested). The B-35 had fairings for the propeller shafts that helped with yaw stability. The YB-49 needed to be very stable, like any bomber, to be a good bomb aiming platform.
Try your silly overlay again. The B-2 looks like nothing the Hortens ever designed.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
yes they do. the whole point of a flying wing is to delete everytbhing that causes extra drag in any way or form.
and lol to your last paragraph, you do you mate.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
That isn't the whole point of a flying wing.
These things are not alike.
Hdfgncd@reddit
There were no stabilizers on the yb-35 or his earlier prototypes
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
The propeller shaft fairings acted as vertical stabilizers on the XB-35.
Hdfgncd@reddit
I can see why that could be true but I’m struggling to find a source that backs you up
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
I forgot where I read that long ago. It wasn't really the intent, though. It was necessitated by the engine/prop arrangement. The N9M was similar that way.
mike7257@reddit
Forgot to mention the real father's of the flying wing concept? Horten was years ahead.
Hdfgncd@reddit
Lockheed was well ahead of them in powered prototypes and a production aircraft
mike7257@reddit
What source says that ? The first horten powered plane flew 1935.
AffectedRipples@reddit
Every source. Horton was flying some gliders and didn't have a powered flight until 1944, 4 years after Northrop.
mike7257@reddit
Nonsense. Use Wikipedia
_Every_thing@reddit
ok
mike7257@reddit
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BCder_Horten
AffectedRipples@reddit
Thats legitimately says they didn't fly powered flights until 1944. What do you think you're changing with the links?
mike7257@reddit
The did fly powered in 1935 ?
AffectedRipples@reddit
Sure. Go around being dumb.
BetweenTwoTowers@reddit
Saved everyone some time, Horten Gliders
The Horten Brothers studied the flying wing concept for a long time prior to ww2 but never designed or attempted a self powered aircraft. You could make an argument about the H II. But even the horten brothers themselves stated that it was just a motor assisted glider that the engine just prolonged the glide time. They didn't design an aerodynamicly stable, powered flying wing until late into the 1940s. There is a reason why flying wings never took off, they were very difficult to design in a way that was functional throughout the power range a fully functional aircraft needs to operate, at low speed high weight they become very dangerously unstable, so designing a lightweight glider is a world of difference than designing a full weight powered aircraft. The horten brothers' design was not even viable as a powered aircraft until light enough and powerful enough jet engines became available, and even then, they were vastly underwhelming.
Gift-Forward@reddit
u/Clockwork9385
I present you this. Do with it as you will
Clockwork9385@reddit
I have no idea what I can do with this, but I’m sure I can put an Enclave spin on this somehow
Gift-Forward@reddit
Main end game bomber in OWB is this exact plane.
Clockwork9385@reddit
Ahh… my mind must have skipped over it since I don’t really go for the Bomber planes
Gift-Forward@reddit
Nothing fills my heart more than 1,000,000 bombers of 8th Air Force pounding and hounding the Legion into oblivion.
totallylegitburner@reddit
If flying wing designs offer such advantages over conventional designs, why have they never so widespread adoption?
D74248@reddit
Stability. Cargo space. Limited CG range.
Gammelpreiss@reddit
Flying wings are inherently unstable in the vertical axis. Northrup never managed to get that problem solved.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
Jeezus you clueless knob, at least spell Northrop right.
Farfignugen42@reddit
They tend to be unstable in flight. This is less of a problem with modern fly by wire and computerized autopilot systems. In the 50s up to the 80s, those were not really viable, so flying wings weren't either.
ctesibius@reddit
The stability thing tends to be misunderstood. They were unstable in the context of a bomber, which has to fly very straight on the bomb run. They were not unstable like say a Harrier, which wants to turn front for back and roll over at low speed.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
This is correct! As shown in this footage, the YB-49 flew very well. But as a bomb aiming platform, it was not great even when equipped with a new autopilot. It worked, but was slow to dampen out the yaw oscillations. Not good on a bomb run.
Besides that, it had short range, smallish payload, and slow speed.
Farfignugen42@reddit
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Edwards_(pilot)
Check the section on his death. This is the pilot that Edward's AFB is named for. He died flying in YB-49 flying wing (the jet version). It departed from controlled flight and broke up in mid air. That's a bit more than "unstable in the context of a bomber".
ctesibius@reddit
And if you look through the history of aviation, you will find hundreds of test pilots of wing-and-tube designs who also got beyond the control limits. In the case of the YB-49 the problem appears to have been structural failure during stall recovery, not for instance yaw instability.
Most aircraft have control limits beyond which they can fail, and the answer is simply not to exceed those limits. As an example, since the 50's there have been T-tail aircraft which are known to be vulnerable to unrecoverable "deep stall" due to the tail plane being blanked by the wing. They have still been used as production passenger aircraft, with the answer being "don't do that". Military aircraft are often accepted with much more severe problems - for instance as a Harrier slows from 90kn to stationary, it will try to turn front for back and roll over on its back. There is no computer assistance: the pilot has to handle this manually.
No, the primary reasons the YB-49 was abandoned was the low yaw stability affecting its ability as a bomber, and that there were other models competing with it which showed more promise.
Now specifically on yaw stability: if you go in a helicopter which doesn't have stability aids, you will find that the nose wanders right and left. This doesn't mean that a helicopter is particularly dangerous to fly in.
WotTheFook@reddit
There are some videos out there of the Northrop flying wing doing some quite frightening oscillations in flight. It must have been a handful at times.
Shaun_Jones@reddit
When the B2 was getting ready for its first test flights, the test pilots asked the YB35 and 49 pilots if they had any advice. They were told that whatever they did, don’t let it stall, because the earlier flying wings were basically unrecoverable if they stalled below 30,000 feet.
DonTaddeo@reddit
Aside from the other points raised by others, they tend to have wings with a high thickness to chord ratio that is unsuitable for transonic or supersonic speeds. The B-47 was considerably faster than the B-49 flying wing variant with similar engines.
Also, the original version with piston engines required extension shafts for the propellers and these added weight and introduced problems of their own with vibration.
CatThe@reddit
blended wing designs are said to be "the future"
HuntSafe2316@reddit
Blended wing designs and flying wings are separate though
pinksystems@reddit
sure, that's been the message since the 70s
CatThe@reddit
hence the quotes.
Fireside__@reddit
They benefit really only bombers and tankers, a deep but short fuselage which isn’t great for most cargo or passengers (especially passengers, imagine being near the outer ends of a passenger cabin toward the wing tips during turbulence).
Cliffinati@reddit
They are much harder to design and they also create very small fuselages not ideal for carrying people or cargo
isaac32767@reddit
This aircraft was only used for actual war once, during the Martian attack on Los Angeles.
https://waroftheworlds.fandom.com/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California
StormBlessed145@reddit
The original movie adaptation of The War of the Worlds uses footage of this plane.
syringistic@reddit
Yup! Dropped a nuke on the tripods.
Impossible_Box9542@reddit
Martians saved by giant bell jars.
Impossible_Box9542@reddit
That's the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on the Martian Machines back in 1954.
WotTheFook@reddit
I wonder how much of the Horten brothers' work was used by Northrop? The Ho-229 was also a flying wing concept.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
None of it.
Atellani@reddit (OP)
Hardly anyone knows about Captain Geoffrey T. R. Hill, but he also briefly worked with Northrop, and he had some interesting ideas as well: https://youtu.be/y6fBiXoMv8M
BetweenTwoTowers@reddit
Wow! That's fascinating.
221missile@reddit
0
Shaun_Jones@reddit
Northrop was working on his planes before WW2 even started. By the time the unfinished HO-229 prototype was brought to America, the YB35 was almost ready to fly.
Itaintall@reddit
During my early days at Northrop, I worked with guys who worked on the YB-49. They were still angry about having to cut them up!
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
The cancellation is understandable. But it is tragic that none were preserved. This was one of the very few airplanes that the phrase "ahead of its time" actually applies.
Donlooking4@reddit
I have always thought that its incredibly small radar “footprint” was a major factor behind the fact that they were all cut up. That this was an unintentional thing that they didn’t realize that it had such an incredibly small radar signature. And when they realized that it had this they “deemed” that they were completely cut up and said that it was a complete failure.
Because of it being the hight of the Cold War if USSR had been able to realize that it was almost impossible to see on the radar then perhaps they would have been building them and possibly the thought of actually being able to win the Nuclear War in that time period would have been very much different.
Ornery_Year_9870@reddit
They didn't have such a small radar signature. They had vertical surfaces and enormous air intakes which both return a lot of radar.
lavardera@reddit
huge wheels!
hoodranch@reddit
Jack Northrup was a legit engineering genius.
BrexitReally@reddit
It’s the Horten H.XVIII
iceguy349@reddit
Please please please read up on Jack Northrop you won’t be disappointed.
My brother in Christ the plane you’re talking about was never built, had no influence on any US designs, exsists only in concept, and was never looked into. Any claims the Horten brothers or rather Reimar Horten exclusively have made about “stealth technology” came decades AFTER the end of WWII and have absolutely no backing whatsoever. The USAF briefly examined a wrecked Ho-229, all the rest were destroyed before the allies got to them. That’s not the plane you listed either that’s a little 2 engined plywood fighter-bomber that the Horten brothers put together right before the war ended. The massive 6 engined monstrosity you’re talking about never even made it off the drawing board and gets wheeled out by every huckster documentary made on the 229 as a scare tactic to hold their viewers. I fell for this BS too. No 229’s in US hands were ever flown. Barely any documentation from either program survived the war leaving almost nothing to go off of.
Northrop was experimenting with his wings before the end of WWII. Not to mention the B-2 was developed by Northrop Grumman. Northrop is literally in the name. Which sounds like a better basis to build a bomber from? An obscure on-paper only prototype of a German bomber that never left the concept stage without so much as a wind tunnel model or a fully built, flown, heavily tested, throughly proven flying wing built by the company’s own founder likely with a mountain of documentation left over.
The XB-35 went through 2 different iterations starting out as a prop aircraft and being upgraded with jet engines (the YB-49) as pictured above because the US was taking an interest in jet aircraft at the time and they where on the verge of killing the whole program.
Hell Northrop Grumman did a documentary examining the nonexistent “stealth characteristics” of the Ho-229 and sure enough half the Northrop Grumman engineers had never heard of it.
LittleHornetPhil@reddit
…Northrop was flying the N1M in 1940, before the US even entered the war.
iceguy349@reddit
If I recall correctly he had powered wings before the Horten brothers did.
The only real accomplishment the Horten brothers achieved was the first JET powered flying wing aircraft.
credit-card_declined@reddit
It's the YB-49
BrexitReally@reddit
Operation paperclip
lariato@reddit
goddamn arsenal bird
PlanesOfFame@reddit
I try to comment this as often as I can, so OP I hope you take note- this is some really rare footage because it seems to include original sound! Of course, that flyby of the yb-49 could just have jet sounds dubbed over it but the awful quality and the whine sure would match up to be the ACTUAL sound of the YB-49. There is incredibly little surviving audio of aircraft from this time, and what exists is cut from different airplanes altogether. Of course, the sound in the film here could very well be a B-47 flyby audio they had on hand to match... but still a very unique thing to hear!
Atellani@reddit (OP)
I am trying to restore the entire video and keep the original sound as well.
WhiskeyTigerFoxtrot@reddit
Thank you for your work on this. Restoration/preservation is so important today more than ever.
LittleHornetPhil@reddit
Some of this stock YB-49 footage was used in the 1953 movie The War Of The Worlds.