Nazi designed stealth bomber


Long Beach Press Telegram:

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.

...

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.

...

The full-scale replica was 55 feet long and weighed 2,000 to 3,000 pounds, much lighter than the original.

...

Northrup's test showed the craft was indeed stealthy when painted by the radar of the 1940s.

It is surprising to me that we are still learning of secrets of the German war effort 64 years after the war ended. Shortly after the war there were some US concept planes designed as a flying wing but they were prop driven and never went into production. I recall seeing the design in an encyclopedia published in the 1950s. This video shows the concept plane in flight.

British radar did give them an advantage in the Battle of Britain. The Ultra project that broke the German encryption of war messages was also a key to defeating the attacks. Poland intelligence operatives helped break the code and design a machine to read the German's message traffic.

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