PHOTOS: "Hitler's Stealth Fighter" Reborn

[Adsos Letter]

SOURCE: National Geographic
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production. (See Hitler's stealth fighter in pictures.)

The engineers' goal was to determine whether the so-called stealth fighter was truly radar resistant. In the process, they've uncovered new clues to just how close Nazi engineers were to unleashing a jet that some say could have changed the course of the war.

To replicate the Ho 2-29 late last year for a documentary premiering Sunday, a team from the Northrop Grumman defense-contracting corporation used original Nazi blueprints (see re-created blueprints of Hitler's stealth fighter) and the only surviving Ho 2-29, which has been stored in a U.S. government facility for more than 50 years.

The all-wing Ho 2-29 looked more like today's U.S. B-2 bomber (B-2 bomber picture)—or something from a Star Wars preQUEUEl—than like any other World War II aircraft. Made primarily of wood and powered by jet engines, the plane was designed for speeds of up to 600 miles an hour (970 kilometers an hour).

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 >>

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090625-hitlers-stealth-fighter-plane.html

[Sherman A1]

1. I will have to try and catch the broadcast!

[dipsydoodle]

2. The other jets they made

were not wholly successful. The rocket fuel was hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine both of which are highly corrosive. Frequently the two chemicals leaked due to pipe corrosion before reaching the engine and the planes simply exploded mid air. It's thought they killed more Germans than allied aircraft men. What did amaze me was the size of their jet engine - about the same as a briefcase.

[proteus_lives]

3. Man, those Nazis will never go away will they?

It's very interesting and I might watch that program.

[conspirator]

4. B2 was a rip-off of the german technology. There is no doubt about that nt

[Democracyinkind]

5. Just like Mercury, Mk-Ultra and the whole of American flight medicine....

Those were really bright chaps. The most shocking thing is that they survived and prevailed in a society that was basically anti-intellectual in its outlook but still managed to come up with some of the most innovative things during the war.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[conspirator]

7. The project was stolen in 1945 and it saved at least 20 years of work

to the american engineers. Without that the B2 would start flying only now. Since some of the german scientists became american citizens, we cannot say it was a total rip-off.

[melm00se]

17. the flying wing

concept and design predates nazi germany by several decades.

[Obamanaut]

20. B49, XB35. Northrop designs, Northrop aircraft, both flew.

[Obamanaut]

26. I think you'll find the B2 is closer to the B49 than one might think. The

wing span is about the same, both Northrop design. Both American made.

[Democracyinkind]

8. I think he meant that the original idea and design came from the german model.

Throwing around the moron a bit fast today, are we?

[Curtland1015]

9. Heidi Klum came up with the idea for the stealth fighter!?

I never knew!

:P

[1]

10. yeah, yeah... simple drawings and actual implementation are so alike...

so alike.

i thought i was rather restrained in my moron toss. didn't you?

[Democracyinkind]

11. If my granddaddy is right, the Horton design was more than a drawing.

But he could be wrong. I won't talk about stuf I don't know. Mercury, Mk-Ultra and our flight medicine were paperclip imports combined with captured data. Our success there is 90% german.

But I wouldn't know about the Horton, personally.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[1]

15. stormfront.org? really? you make my point for me, moron...

[Democracyinkind]

16. I'm endorsing the moron label now too. Sorry for holding you back.

Funny things is, some people on stormfront aren't that stupid, the link clearly debunks the claim wich infuriates you so. Anyways, now that I've recalled it, the B-2 would never have been possible without 70's/80's technology, so the claim seems to be outlandish.

Sorry for holding you back. Ring free. *lol*

[Codeine]

21. Did you just fucking link to Stormfront?!

Oh man. What an ass.

[Kurska]

28. Did you honestly just link a article in a section called "Science technology and race"?

[Democracyinkind]

31. Having written a paper on the subject, I'd strongly disagree with that assertion.

It wasn't 1) superior and it wasn't 2) underrated. Rather overrated, if your rating agent is the Nazis.

If you would know something about the Nazis you wouldn't make such broad satements, especially not when dealing with a polycratic state/system.

And stormfront? is that where you get your history? Try Rainer Walker or Rainer Fröbe. You know, historians, not white supremacists.

[tammywammy]

34. Wow stormfront, I think we all know who the moron is now. n/t

[Obamanaut]

19. The B49 (jet, prop version was XB35), a Flying Wing, was made

by Northrop, but never went into general production. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-49-pics.htm Some photos of the B49 at this link.

If you are old enough to remember the War of the World movie from the 50's, a Flying WIng was used to drop the bomb on the aliens (spoiler - the bomb didn't do them in)

This design was not unique to the Germans.

[and-justice-for-all]

12. They were quite the engineers and way ahead of the times...

If they had been able to bring things like the Ho 2-29 to fruition, they would have been almost unstoppable.

[Democracyinkind]

13. I just visited a seminar on that topic. Some people see it that way, I don't.

But I totally agree: If you look at the sorry state of the german intellectual scene of post 33, it is almost unbelievable what they achieved. It's totally comparable to American results in a free, democratic und overfunded environment. That kind of makes you think.

I just read "Hitlers Plan for Attack on America" and I must say.... That really beats any isolationist argument for WW2 ... So I would agree with your post in so far as that if we hadn't declared war and let them do what they want, they pretty soon would have come up with game-changing plans and devices - assuming that the other fronts held, which isn't assuming much.

[MadHound]

18. Seminar aside, if you look at what they achieved and where they were,

vs. where the Allies were technologically, in many ways the Germans were out ahead of the front. Sure, we developed a nifty bomb sight and the atomic bomb, but in many other areas Germany was far ahead of the pack. After all, the US went to the moon on what was essentially modified V2 technology. That's just the beginning.

[Democracyinkind]

24. If you refer to V2, Flight medicine, Advanced design of aircraft - granted

But there are many other areas of technology where the Aliies simply outsmarted the Axis - V2 is a good example for that since american ingenuity made the V2 threat obsolote within just a few months. When it comes to code-breaking and other areas we totally had the upper hand too.

But that is not to denigrate "nAzi" science. Considering the exodus, the really scarce financing and supplying with commodities, it is absolutely amazing what they achieved. Nevertheless, the view of "Nazi" science as something structurally (or even genetically) superior doesn't seem to be legit to me. Granted, if you focus on some narrow aspects, the germans had stunning successes, but historically that was rather DESPITE of the nazis rather than BECAUSE of them. That is something that holds true for the V2 programm as well as for most other things - with the exception of medical science maybe. Don't forget that there was a reckless phase of anti-intelectualism that cost the germans some of their best minds and prevented them from utilizing allot of promising military technologies.

But all in all, I'd agree with you, especially when it comes to the V/mercury programs.

[and-justice-for-all]

35. Oh yes, absolultely...nt

[Obamanaut]

25. If the same computer technology for flight controls had been available

in the 40's that we have today, the Flying Wing (B 49) would have been successful. Several versions flew, but not with the success that had been hoped for.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-49.htm

Article at link, which has clickable link to photos

[MilesColtrane]

33. What would have powered the 2-29, fascist zeal?

After the Nazis failed to capture and hold the Russian oil fields they were operating on borrowed time.

[MicaelS]

22. Jack Northrup and his Flying Wings

It was not just the Horten Brothers who were working on flying wings, as first article indicates, Northrup started working in the 30s. While the idea of the flying wing is fantastic in theory, in reality it wasn't until computer controlled stability systems that a practical and safe flying wing became available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-35 (piston flying wing)

The B-35 was the brainchild of Jack Northrop, who made the flying wing the focus of his work during the 1930s. During World War II, Northrop had been commissioned to develop a large wing-only, long range bomber designated XB-35. Northrop advocated the "flying wing" as a means of reducing parasitic drag and eliminating structural weight not directly responsible for producing lift. In theory, the B-35 could carry a greater payload faster, farther, and cheaper than a conventional bomber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 (jet flying wing)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Northrop

Shortly before his death in 1981 he was given clearance to see designs and a scale model of the B-2 Spirit which shared many of the design features as his YB-35 and YB-49 designs. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has the same wingspan as Jack Northrop's jet-powered flying wing, the YB-49.

[Historic NY]

23. Garber facility, I have to go there. That B-17 nose section in the film is the

only D-model left, the "Swooze". I sure hope they finally get around to restoring the Horten & it.

http://www.aviation-history.com/garber/vgarb.html

http://www.aviation-history.com/garber/vg-bldg/vindex.html


There is a space shuttle connection to this also when they were desigining a "lifting body".

http://yarchive.net/mil/flying_wing.html

[-..__...]

27. They stole the plans from us...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment_II

"It is several years after the events of the first movie, and David Herdeg (the survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment from the first film) and Allison (the woman from 1984 he fell in love with) have married and have a child. David awakes, in agony, to a changed world. Germany won World War II and the United States is now about to mark 50 years as a Nazi conquest. The local political leader is trying to find the right music for a commemorative video of "Fifty Glorious Years". Yet, social conditions are authoritarian with people under a high degree of control from day to day.

It turns out that Germany won the war because of a futuristic aircraft called the Phoenix that was used to deliver an atomic bomb to destroy Washington. The aircraft was destroyed in the explosion, and the scientist who claimed he built it was ridiculed because he was unable to build another. The fact is, the aircraft (a stealth F-117 Nighthawk) came from the future - the scientist's son, an American engineer, was working on an aircraft teleportation system using technology not entirely unrelated to the Philadelphia Experiment. The idea is to "beam" a bomber into a high-risk area to surprise enemy air defenses and hit a target before they can react. The first test of the device is an attempt to transport an F-117 with a payload of tactical nuclear bombs to the US Air Force base at Rammstein, Germany. While the F-117 was successfully teleported to Rammstein, it passed through time, arrived there in 1943, and landed in the hands of the Nazis... including the scientist's father who would claim to the Nazis that he built it.

To successfully travel through time the son needs a sample of David's blood.

Somehow David must travel back in time to 1943 to Germany, intercept the aircraft's arrival, and keep it from being used by the Nazis. In the end, the German scientist is killed, and his son from the future disappears, eliminating the development of the aircraft and restoring the time line to normal."

[Democracyinkind]

30. great post! to bringt up PE2 was pretty witty. respect.

[Obamanaut]

29. B 49 Northrop - google nt

[rockymountaindem]

32. And once again, the posters who refuse to believe the US can do anything right

swoop in on this thread to tell us the B-2 was invented by the Nazis and stolen by the USAF despite the fact that Northrop conceived the flying wing design independently years earlier :eyes: