USAF Flying Wing in The War Of The Worlds - what happened to it?
LIBERATOR
They portray a fully functioning *Horten* flying wing with USAF
markings.
What happened to this very clear real flying wing?
Secret project purposely leaked out to us just for the movie? It looks
wicked.
Without doubt it is real...
David E. Powell
Not Horten, Northrop. The Northrop flying wing porgrams went back to
WW2 and were independently developed. Eventually a prop engined bomber
was built, and then a jet bomber version, which was seen in the
movie.
The line eventually led to the Northrop B-2 Stealth Bomber, which
appeared in another alien invasion movie as America's first line of
defense - Independence Day.
LIBERATOR
wrote:
Was there any improvements over the Horten versions?
David E. Powell
In size and power plants, yes.
WaltBJ
Walt BJ
Matt Wiser
before the Horten brothers, that would be worth seeing his upcoming
coronary. The aircraft shown in the movie was the YB-49. Why they didn't use
a B-47 in the movie I don't know. Maybe because the YB was more
"futuristic", even though by 1953 (the year the movie came out) they'd all
been permanently grounded.
"WaltBJ" <walt...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
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Keith Willshaw
"David E. Powell" <David_Po...@msn.com> wrote in message
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>
> > The line eventually led to the Northrop B-2 Stealth Bomber, which
> > appeared in another alien invasion movie as America's first line of
> > defense - Independence Day.
>
>> Was there any improvements over the Horten versions?
> In size and power plants, yes.
Not to mention the minor fact that they were built and flew.
In fact Northrop was designing flying wings long before the
US entered WW2 starting with the N-1M. The work
of the Horten brothers is interesting but while they were building
gliders Northrop were building full size powered aircraft.
Neither copied the other it was a genuine parallel development and
the parentage of the B-2 is easily traceable back to the XB-35
Keith
Keith Willshaw
"Matt Wiser" <MattWi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:sP__l.5838$hE....@newsfe13.iad...
> For Liberator to find out that Jack Northrop had flying wings in the air
> before the Horten brothers, that would be worth seeing his upcoming
> coronary. The aircraft shown in the movie was the YB-49. Why they didn't
> use
> a B-47 in the movie I don't know. Maybe because the YB was more
> "futuristic", even though by 1953 (the year the movie came out) they'd all
> been permanently grounded.
Which means they were available for film making, one suspects the B-47's
were otherwise engaged :)
Keith
Dan
It was probably stock footage.
Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired
Bill Shatzer
I believe the film used USAF archive footage - it wasn't necessary to
borrow the actual aircraft for the film.
Matt Wiser
> Keith Willshaw wrote:
I forget where exactly, but on the web, one can find the final
shooting script for War of the Worlds, dated 1 Dec 51. It does mention
stock footage for the Flying Wing scenes. They did use the OK NG's
45th ID in the battle scene, though: they were in final workups before
deploying to Korea, and were available. So the Marines depicted in the
movie are actually OK National Guardsmen who deployed to Korea later
on.
Matt Wiser
he never let reality get in the way of their pet fantasies.
"Keith Willshaw" <ke...@nospam.kwillshaw.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:QL7%l.24813$Yf....@newsfe14.ams2...
euno...@yahoo.com.au
Ironically the Northrop YB-49 is shown dropping an nuclear bomb and
one of the reasons it was rejected as an opperational bomber was the
aircrafts bomb bay was to small to carry certain kinds of thermo
nuclear bomb.
The Hortens had their first sailplane flying wing in 1932 though they
had a model sailplane by 1929, Jack Northrop had his first in 1929
though his flying wing wasn't 'true' as it had P-38 Lightening style
tail booms, so not really a pure wing. Northrop had his first true
flying wing iun 1939 by which time the Hortens had several gliders and
were getting ready for their first powered aircraft.
They knew about each other and both I believed used the threat of the
other to secure funding.
Both used different techiniques: In essence to achieve stabillity an
aircraft is designed so that the placement of the center of lift is
beined that of the center of gravity so that it is slightly nose
heavy. The nose is then help up by adding a tailplane to provide
down force. The tailplane is also used to provide pitch control.
there is more to it than that: wings have more than just lift and
drag, they have a pitching mommnent: a torque measured about the 1/4th
chord point that must be taken into account.
To make a flying wing stable one technique is to sweep the wing tips
back and twist them down to create the same effect. In the Northrop
YB-49 this negative or down twist was 4.0 to 4.5 degrees. Normal
aircraft often have a 'washout' of 2.0 to 2.5 degrees so the YB-49
washout was quite high. This also helped ensure the wings tips
stalled last. One final addition was slats which further ensured
that the wing tips stalle last.
The other way was to use something called an auto-stable or reflexed
airfoil. In this the pitching characteristics are designed to
provide stabilllity. In effect they have a slight skin ramp at the
tail end to provide the same effect as having a tail.
The Hortens created many different kinds of flying wings. In the Ho
10 and Ho 229 they used these reflexed auto stable airfoils for the
inner portion of the wing, extending it out in a bat like tail to add
fueselage volum as well as provide stabillity on the outers surfaces
they used ordinary airfoils as well as wing sweep with washout at the
tips. The washout needed was only 2 degrees.
The story goes that when Northrop engineers set about developing the
B2 they did inspect the Ho 229. Certainly the beaver/bat tail on the
B2 looks like that of the Ho 229 and provides a stabalising function.
Both aircraft had some pitch instabillity, that of the Ho 229 being
somewhat less: the Ho 229 didn't need little vertical fins for
instance.
When the B-35 was converted to the YB-49 the removal of the contra
rotating propellors removed the gyroscopic stabalising influence and
it also removed the airflow straightening effects of the prop suction
which would have arrested spanwise flow, hence the YB-49 had little
fins around the jets. By not being purists to the flying wing the
Hortens thickened the fueselage to create space and thereby avoided
the thickened wing that limited the YB-49 Mach.
The slighty dynamic pitch instabillity of the YB-49 caused bomb aiming
errors, these were eventually solved by an autopilot but it was
apparently to late.
One unusual feature of the YB-49/B-35 was that it was the first
aircraft to have all powered 'irreversible' flying controls (excluding
the Bristol Brabazon) becuase at certain angles of attack the elevons
would suck themselves up and if they had of been rigged directly to
the controls psuh the control column towards the pilot!
LIBERATOR
> For Liberator to find out that Jack Northrop had flying wings in the air
> before the Horten brothers, that would be worth seeing his upcoming
> coronary. The aircraft shown in the movie was the YB-49. Why they didn't use
> a B-47 in the movie I don't know. Maybe because the YB was more
> "futuristic", even though by 1953 (the year the movie came out) they'd all
>
> news:a9ed3a4e-fa7d-4e93...@j20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Look up XB35 and XB49 in Wiki. Also Northrop N-9.
> > Walt BJ
Perhaps they took them into secret service and didn't ground them.
Horten Brothers is way better than that American crap.
LIBERATOR
> I doubt "Liberator" would spin it that way, but then again, crazies such as
> he never let reality get in the way of their pet fantasies."Keith Willshaw" <ke...@nospam.kwillshaw.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:QL7%l.24813$Yf....@newsfe14.ams2...
>
>
>
> >news:062f0426-3cbb-463e...@u10g2000vbd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > > The line eventually led to the Northrop B-2 Stealth Bomber, which
> > > > appeared in another alien invasion movie as America's first line of
> > > > defense - Independence Day.
>
> > >> Was there any improvements over the Horten versions?
>
> > > In size and power plants, yes.
>
> > Not to mention the minor fact that they were built and flew.
>
> > In fact Northrop was designing flying wings long before the
> > US entered WW2 starting with the N-1M. The work
> > of the Horten brothers is interesting but while they were building
> > gliders Northrop were building full size powered aircraft.
>
> > Neither copied the other it was a genuine parallel development and
> > the parentage of the B-2 is easily traceable back to the XB-35
>
> > Keith
Horten Brothers was way better.