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.
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