Posted on 06/27/2009 6:30:17 PM PDT by Arec Barrwin
ON TV Hitler's Stealth Fighter airs Sunday, June 28, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Hitler's Stealth Fighter >>
July 25, 2009--At a Northrop Grumman facility in California, top stealth-plane experts admire their handiwork in late 2008—a full-size, though flightless, replica of a Horten 2-29, aka Hitler's stealth fighter, created for a documentary airing June 28 on the National Geographic Channel. (Read the full story.)
The team tested the re-created Nazi jet against World War II-style radar. With its radar-resistant design and 600-mile-an-hour (970-kilometer-an-hour) speed, the team concluded, the Ho 2-29 would have allowed British antiaircraft forces only 9 minutes to respond, versus 18 with a conventional World War II fighter.
Had Hitler's stealth fighter made it into mass production, the plane could have changed to course of the war in Europe, experts say. (Interactive: Explore Hitler's stealth fighter.)
(National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society, which part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)
— Photograph by Linda Reynolds/Flying Wing Films
It’s a good thing our German scientists were smarter than the Soviet’s German scientists.
Yeah, it would have delayed the war long enough for us to nuke Germany back to the stone age.
How can this not be on the Hitler Channel???
Not exactly that stealthy and probably would not fly. Flying wings were not a rousing success before computers.
wow, that is way too cool.They were way ahead on all the aircraft designs, including a forward swept bomber, the v-2, some ramjet rotor affairs.
My European history teacher told me that had it not been for WWII, the History Channel would not exist.
If I understand it correctly flying wings are darn near impossible without computer control.
If the Germans had settled on just one or two advanced designs and put them into mass prodcution they probably could have a good number of operational ME-262’s in 1942 and probably would have had them much better developed by 1943 or 44. that really could have made a difference but we really had them so outnumbered that we still would have won.
Instead they wasted resources on some fantastic aircraft which were years from deployment, at least in numbers.
I also read that the Russian fighters of the last year or so of WWII were fully equal to the P-51 mustang. Maybe the YAK-9 can’t recall for sure.
Cool weapons but the Germans would have done alot better with better more mundane things - better radar, better trucks and cold weather gear...
FWIW youtube has a military thing on it and I have been downloading P-40s, P-47, and other aerial stuff. I think I saw german flying wing on there too.
If you want to have a good laugh, go to youtube and search “hitler nigerian email”
parsy, who laughed til he was sore
This somehow looks oddly like the styling of Elwood Engle’s Chrysler Turbine coupe from the 60’s. He came to Chrysler from Ford, where he designed the iconic 61 Continental and the 61 Thunderbird, which was originally intended to be a Lincoln, hence the similarity. Engle replaced an ailing Virgil Exner, who was responsible for the memorable, soaring tailfins on Chrysler, Plymouth, Dodge and DeSoto automobiles.
Actually what really might have changed the Air War in Europe would have been the ME-262 being mass produced and given a longer range. Of course if that happened Germany still didn’t have the pilots or the fuel to fly them toward the war’s end.
I dare anyone to counter this little bit of aviation folklore.
The Ford Trimotor with its corrugated skin was actually the first “stealth” aircraft.
It would very likely fly. Hortens invented the flying wing that Northrup had to reinvent.
The 163 was not a flying wing.
Lesson to learn here.
The Germans had the most advanced weaponry of the war V-2 ballistic missiles, snorkel submarines, Tiger tanks, 88 mm artillery - and they lost. Because they didn’t have enough of them and they were overwhelmed by more numerous and less sophisticated Allied weapons..
So now we have people like Gates and Obama telling us that we only need 187 F-22s, less than 300 ships, etc., because “they are so technologically superior”.
Ever see the radar return from a corrugated metal building?
As much as I love the History Channel, years ago I called it the 3rd Reich Channel. Every other program was based on Hitler and the gang. A lot of those shows were very good but they were run into the ground.
It wud haf von ze war had ve gotten ze snags out!
“Because they didn’t have enough of them and they were overwhelmed by more numerous and less sophisticated Allied weapons..”
In all fairness, add fighting wars on 2 fronts, and also the very very bad decisions overriding commanders in barbarossa, such as not retreating for the winter, to name one of a number of big issues where local military command was overriden. I have read arguments that hitler and the general staff in berlin lost barbarossa themselves.
The modern theoretical development of Radar Cross Section calculations wss by Pietor Ufemsev of Soviet Union. I am lucky to be able to say I took two classes on the subject from him after he was able to emigrate to the US.
“Hitler’s Secret French Onion Soup Recipe” Tonight, at 8, on the History Channel!
despite the corrugated skin, the three motors must have had a huge radar profile.
The dumb german commanders were the ones who planned Barbarossa. There were no winter uniforms so they merely assumed that Soviet Russia would be destroyed before winter.
Go back a little farther, Burgess-Dunne 1914 ;)
Yep. That bird was waaay ahead of its time.
The Germans didn’t have the fuel to fly a fleet of such twin-engined jet fighters.
The Germans didn’t have a nuclear weapon.
The Germans were far behind in computers and cryptography.
They lost some 12 million people, and any delay in the war would have cost them millions more, especially civilians.
They were never close to winning, they never could win...not against the U.S.
The U.S. lost 350,000 people if you include those killed by the Japanese.
The U.S. introduced the infra-red sniper scope at Iwo Jima (M2 and M3) and the radar-activated airburst artillery round at Bastiogne...both of which ramped up Axis casualties far beyond what the Axis could even predict, much less withstand.
Fair is fair with regard to the German scientists, as well as their more conservative opposite numbers on our side. No one knew what any of these designs might do in the 1940s. All of this stuff was trial and error. It happened that the V1, V2, and Me 262 worked. Plenty of other ideas failed, including some of our own. The Spruce Goose is an American example.
I agree with you about the numbers of aircraft. Our resources and industrial plant were far greater than Germany’s, and safe from German attack. They may have prolonged the inevitable, but German loss was inevitable after they attacked Moscow and failed to reach the Caucasus oil fields. It may have been inevitable as soon as they crossed the Russian border.
the the Messerschmitt Me 163 ‘Komet’ was said to be the first swept wing fighter. it was not a flying wing as far as I ever heard it described. anybody?
Today's "stealth" bombers fly only because of computer technology and thrust.
Also: one poster stated that the Horton is not too very stealthy.
Yes and no: today it would not be all that successful but as of WWII (and much later) "stealth" was measured by frontal area of the aircraft.
I think that this wing would have met those criteria quite nicely.
“The dumb german commanders were the ones who planned Barbarossa. There were no winter uniforms so they merely assumed that Soviet Russia would be destroyed before winter.”
I always wondered why they didn’t take napoleon’s lesson seriously.
That said, am I right in saying that General Staff denied (guderian? dont remember now) permission to pull back considerably into the winter? I know I remember 3 or so major overrides of on-site generals by berlin which were either absurd on the face of them (such as weathering winter where they were) or otherwise strategic disasters.
He saw the evidence and people are still around that witnessed 3 Atom Bomb tests. They were some kind of Dirty Bombs, but the show was very interesting. I think that was on Nat Geo as well.
Their fate was sealed when Hilter invaded Russia. Operation Gunnerside sealed the deal.
I guess the Brits/Americans wouldn’t have continued to work and improve radar when confronted with a plane such as this.
I guess the name Jack Northrop means nothing to you....
The Germans were nowhere near ready for the war in 1940. The General Staff had thought that 1949 or so might be right. They were still using horses during the war.
Had Hitler’s stealth fighter made it into mass production, the plane could have changed to course of the war in Europe, experts say.
They say that about almost every distinctive design for weapon systems the Germans thought up, and barely produced or tested...
It is a slick design though...
not so sure about it’s flight characteristics, but it’s a beautiful machine for sure.
add fighting wars on 2 fronts
why does eeryone forget N Africa and Italy?
It's also way too groovy.
Some very interesting reading: http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/Horten_Nurflugels/horten_nurflugels.html
Commentary on the Ho IX (Ho 229): http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/Horten_Nurflugels/ho_ix/ho_ix_blurb/body_ho_ix_blurb.html
Ho 229 First Flight:
There was plenty of blame to go around.
Hitler diverted Gudierian’s Panzer Gruppe from Moscow to the south. They then extemporized the attack on Moscow, long after the Russian campaign should have been over, according to the plan.
I had a chat with an old veteran who got frostbite (he lost the ends of all his fingers) in Tula, southeast of Moscow. He was in an infantry division raised in Austria.
The Germans were shocked. Their intelligence estimates said the Soviets had a certain number of tanks, tank divisions, and infantry divisions. They then found that they before the attack on Moscow had already counted 200% of that number. But it was all Hitler’s fault.
Their best tank (so they thought) was the PzKwIII, and its shells bounced off the KV-1 and T-34 at close range. Guderian wrote the specification for the PzKwIII and PzKwIV in 1935. When it proved inadequate, it was Hitler’s fault.
They had gotten around the Versailles Treaty by training with tanks in Russia. Then, they were suprised. Oh, but it was all Hitler’s fault.
What a convenient scape goat he was.
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