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Nazi Stealth Plane Revealed
Did Third Reich design pioneering stealth jet?
Northrop in El Segundo tests `flying wing'
By Muhammed El-Hasan, Staff Writer
Posted: 06/24/2009 06:43:53 PM PDT
Could Nazi Germany have altered the course of World War II - or at least withstood the Allied onslaught longer - by deploying a secret aircraft that was technologically decades ahead of its time?
That question may never be answered.
But engineers and technicians at Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector in El Segundo recently were able to shine some light on a Nazi aircraft that never was deployed.
At 9p.m. Sunday, the National Geographic Channel will premiere "Hitler's Stealth Fighter," a documentary about the Horten 229, a jet-powered "flying wing" designed by Germany during the war.
A flying wing has no fuselage and in many cases no vertical tail, an innovative aircraft design that provides stealth, the ability to at least partially evade radar detection.
"When I first saw this airplane, I was pretty astonished there was this jet-powered flying wing with swastikas on it," said Mike Jorgensen, the film's producer and director. "There was a lot of opinions about whether it was a stealth aircraft. I thought this was a great opportunity to find out. And the only people who could do it were the people who build stealth flying wings."
That led the Canadian documentarian to Northrop, which has been working on flying wings and other low-observable aircraft technology for decades. The most famous flying wing is Northrop's B-2 Spirit, which has been used in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In the spring of last year, Jorgensen approached the aerospace giant with his request for assistance in determining the stealthiness of the Horten 229.
Northrop agreed.
In the early 1940s, the Third Reich started a secret construction project to develop the Horten 229, named for its designers, brothers Walter and Reimar Horten.
The aircraft was jet-powered. During the war, the only other jet-powered plane was Germany's Messerschmitt 262.
The Horten 229 was briefly flight tested, but the war ended before it could be deployed.
It is unclear how the combination of a jet engine and ability to evade radar might have affected Germany's performance in the war.
But was the aircraft truly stealthy?
A team of Northrop engineers and other staff visited the only existing Horten 229, at a Smithsonian Institution warehouse in Maryland, to observe and measure the plane.
From late September to mid-December, the team designed and built the replica at a high-tech model shop in El Segundo.
"Anytime we build models like this, we want them to replicate real articles as closely as possible," said Tom Dobrenz, one of Northrop's directors in the special technologies area. "So a lot of the techniques we have today will be able to make things, whether it's wood or plastic or fiber plastic, accurate down to hundredths and tenths of an inch."
The automation in Northrop's model shop allowed some production tasks that would have taken months to do by hand to be completed in several days, Dobrenz said.
The full-scale replica was 55 feet long and weighed 2,000 to 3,000 pounds, much lighter than the original.
Some parts, like the engine, were recreated in plastic and coated with metallic paint "to make it look like an engine to the radar," Dobrenz said. "So we can have light plastic parts that are built as a model and represent very large metallic parts."
In January, the Northrop team tested the replica's ability to evade radar at the company's test range in the Mojave Desert. For the tests, the model was lifted 50 feet off the ground, but was not flown.
Northrop's production and testing process is featured in Jorgensen's documentary.
The team concluded that the plane indeed was stealthy.
"The big wow moment for me was Northrop has solved what I think was one of the great unsolved mysteries of World War II," Jorgensen said. "This was the most advanced technology that the Germans had at the end of the war, and Northrop solved the question of how stealthy it was and its performance against Allied radar at the time. It's significantly better than anything flying operationally probably until the 1960s."
Added: Jun 30 2009 In: education,technology
By: True_Madness 
- Tags:
- WWII,
- Nazi Germany,
- Stealth
- Views: 4185 |
- Votes: 0 |
- Recommendations: 0 |
- Comments: 34
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Comments - sort by newest to oldest
It had charcoal added to the paint and wood-glue which reduced it's radar cross-section, by something like 1/5. Anything made out of wood though, is inherently radar absorbent. The Wright brothers' first flights at Kittyhawk were in stealth aircraft.
Wasn't this the suicide bomber that was supposed to be able to attack NYC? Just enough fuel to get there and the pilot bails.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "ST0N3PONY" (R)
Still woulda lost.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "wags" (R)
Wasnt designed for stealh. Just a flying wing. Advanced for its time, yes. But a pain in the a** to build. They could never put the thing into mass production. And it had the reliability worse than a 1980 Chevy Citation.
The 20 min flight time sorta made it a little hard to even approach radar. Let alone try to evade it.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "Drenigma" (R)
The Germans are very smart people. When you work as a team, it is amazing what you can do.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "Steve677" (R)
"Swastikas"?
Looks more like an iron cross to me...
Someone who doesn't even have that basic knowledge,
doesn't have much credibility in other aspects either.
"It is unclear how the combination of a jet engine and ability to evade radar might have affected Germany's performance in the war."
Radar absorbent or not... It's fortunate that the Germany did not manage to produce more Me 262 Schwalbe... it would probably have turned the tide.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "Yammo" (R)
Looks more like an iron cross to me...
Someone who doesn't even have that basic knowledge,
doesn't have much credibility in other aspects either.
"It is unclear how the combination of a jet engine and ability to evade radar might have affected Germany's performance in the war."
Radar absorbent or not... It's fortunate that the Germany did not manage to produce more Me 262 Schwalbe... it would probably have turned the tide.
I think he might be referring to a file photo not pictured here, the one above looks like the northrop scale model.
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "40s" (R)
just think how far they would be if they didnt have a fanatical leader to **** up their future...
Posted Jun-30-2009 by "Poster101" (R)
Or so the Germans would have you believe...................
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "Tongueboy" (R)
If Germany had won the war, I wonder where the world would be regarding technology.
Wars tend to demand advances in engineering on every front and the Germans were far ahead in many technologies.
It might make with an interesting book or graduate research project.
Just a thought, just a question.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "GraveMatter" (R)
No jet plane could have won the war for the Nazis. This is bullshit. Talk nukes and we might be able to have a debate. But a friggen jet airplane compared to all of his Nazi ground forces getting thier teeth knocked out???...that's a stretch of imagination comparable to Star Trek fantasy conventions to anyone who has studied WWII. Complete and utter bullshit.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "Fire37Rescue" (R)
Wars tend to demand advances in engineering on every front and the Germans were far ahead in many technologies.
It might make with an interesting book or graduate research project.
Just a thought, just a question.
The jury is still out on anybody winning the war. That is my opinion.
What is going on in the world now is the repercussions of some of the decisions made by the allies.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "Steve677" (R)
The nazis didnt design that, the aliens did..
Anyone know why they chose to bestow their universal knowledge and advanced wisdom upon the Germans people only?
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "Maxisminion" (R)
******* NAZI engineers.... they kicked ass! 1st supersonic missiles, 1st guided bombs, 1st jets produced for combat, 1st ballistic missiles in combat, 1st stealth fighter, Volkswagen (very advanced for it's time) 1st high speed highways. ... And they probably still would have lost if most their ambitions worked out. Even if Russia was smashed. If England held, the US would of done giant nuclear bench press, dropping 'em as fast as they could make them.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "verykron" (R)
Wars tend to demand advances in engineering on every front and the Germans were far ahead in many technologies.
It might make with an interesting book or graduate research project.
Just a thought, just a question.
The jury is still out on anybody winning the war. That is my opinion.
What is going on in the world now is the repercussions of some of the decisions made by the allies.
Now that is as far out as I have heard regarding WWII.
The Allied forces did win the war; just check the signatures on surrender documents!
What is it with the world today; everybody is trying to re-write history to fit their needs.
He who wins writes the rules; its always been that way and always will.
Repercussions, you make it sound like the world is worse off by the direction history took.
I dont get people now days.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "GraveMatter" (R)
I'm not sure when this story is from, but they've known about the Horten 229 for a long time, and the B-2 designers actually went back and looked at Horten's designs and models in building their own plan.
The Germans didn't set out to build a stealth aircraft with this plane. They were looking for something long-range that could hit the U.S., and the 229 might have actually been able to accomplish that. Can you imagine what would have happened if the Nazis developed this a year earlier? Prototypes were captured by advancing allied forces, so production was not far away. Had the Nazis been able to bomb New York in 1944, many of the fighters running bomber escort over Germany and offering support to advancing troops would have to have been recalled for home defense. It would have been a mess.
From the best guesses, the 229 would have been fast and fairly maneuverable, too. It certainly would have been able to outpace American fighters. This and the Me-262, had they shown up in combat in large numbers a year or two earlier could have severely hurt the allies.
Posted Jul-1-2009 by "buzzardist" (R)