Engineers of the Northrop-Grumman Corporation had a great interest on the Ho 229, and a few of them went to the Smithsonian Museum’s office in Silver Hill, Maryland in the 1980s to learn about and study the V3 airframe. The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. The Horten Ho 229 is generally known by a few unique names. [5] Ziller undertook a series of four complete turns at 20° angle of bank. [3] All subsequent test flights and development were done by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. The Hortens concluded that the low-drag flying wing design could meet all of the goals: by reducing the drag, cruise power could be lowered to the point where the range requirement could be met. ", Thomas Dobrenz, Aldo Spadoni, Michael Jorgensen, ", This page was last edited on 3 October 2020, at 02:54. On the way, the Ho 229 spent a brief time at RAE Farnborough in the UK,[3] during which it was considered whether British jet engines could be fitted, but the mountings were found to be incompatible[7] with the early British turbojets, which used larger-diameter centrifugal compressors as opposed to the slimmer axial-flow turbojets the Germans had developed. [16], A jet-powered flying wing design such as the Horten Ho 229 has a smaller radar cross-section (RCS) than conventional contemporary twin-engine aircraft because the wings blended into the fuselage and there are no large propeller disks or vertical and horizontal tail surfaces to provide a typical identifiable radar signature. The wing's chord/thickness ratio ranged from 15% at the root to 8% at the wingtips. The H.IX was of mixed construction, with the center pod made from welded steel tubing and wing spars built from wood. The Horten H.IX, RLM designation Ho 229 (or Gotha Go 229 for extensive re-design work done by Gotha to prepare the aircraft for mass production) was a German prototype fighter/bomber initially designed by Reimar and Walter Horten to be built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik late in World War II. After the war, Reimar Horten said he intended to mix charcoal dust in with the wood glue to absorb electromagnetic waves (radar), which he believed could shield the aircraft from detection by British early-warning ground-based radar that operated at 20 to 30 MHz, with a wavelength of 10 to 15m (top end of the HF band), known as Chain Home. However, the Me 262 was considered by many as unsuitable for fighter missions, being slow in turning. The design was taken from the Horten brothers and given to Gothaer Waggonfabrik. Two weeks later, on 18 February 1945, disaster struck during the third test flight. [18] After an expenditure of about US$250,000 and 2,500 man-hours, Northrop's Ho 229 reproduction was tested at the company's RCS test range at Tejon, California, US where it was placed on a 15-metre (50 ft) articulating pole and exposed to electromagnetic energy sources from various angles at a distance of 100 m, using the same three HF/VHF-boundary area frequencies in the 20–50 MHz range.[17]. Work had also started on the two-seat Ho 229 V4 and Ho 229 V5 night-fighter prototypes, the Ho 229 V6 armament test prototype, and the Ho 229 V7 two-seat trainer. In the same month, work commenced on the third prototype, the Ho 229 V3. 1945", WarHistoryOnline's June 2020-dated Ho 229 V3 restoration photos article, Reich Air Ministry (RLM) aircraft designations, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Horten_Ho_229&oldid=981563308, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Myhra, David. Sometimes, it was also called the Gotha Go 229, because Gothaer Waggonfabrik was the name of the German maker who manufactured the plane. [17][5], In early 2008, Northrop Grumman paired up television documentary producer Michael Jorgensen and the National Geographic Channel to produce a documentary to determine whether the Ho 229 was the world's first true "stealth" fighter-bomber. It was the primary plane with elements in its design which can be alluded to as stealth innovation, to obstruct the ability of radar to identify the plane. ", "Desperate for victory, the Nazis built an aircraft that was all wing. The Hortens flew an unpowered glider in March of 1944. planes that literally should not be able to fly. The identity Ho 229 had been given to the plane by the German Ministry of Aviation. Reimar Horten said he blended charcoal dust with the wood paste to soak up electromagnetic waves (radar), which he accepted could shield the aircraft from identification by British early warning ground-based radar that worked at 20 to 30 MHz (the top end of the HF band), which is called Chain Home radar.