In 1923 aircraft engineer Jack Northrop built a balsa model of a
futurist plane so streamlined it was practically all wing. That model
was the first step toward realizing his dream of a pure flying wing.
Northrop believed that a pure wing with no tail or fuselage to produce
drag could carry any load faster, father and more economical than a
conventional plane of similar size. And he envisioned the skies filled
one day with his planes. Over the next three decades, Northrop
doggedly built a series of such aircraft ranging from the primitive
1929 flying wing which retained a tail assembly to the huge pure wing
YB49 all jet bomber
The YB49 was one of the fastest big planes of its day with a speed of
500mph and in 1948 set an endurance record by remaining a loft 9 1/2
hours without refueling. Even though the aircraft was some what
deficient in directional stability it was Honeywell's little "Herbert"
a stability augmentation system that essentially corrected this
problem... Nevertheless a tight budget and the fact that among other
things the plane lacked the capacity to carry the all important atomic
bomb forced the USAF to scrap the YB49 in favor of the conventional
B36.
Test pilot Max Stanely after the successful first flight of the XB35 a
4 engine piston powered bomber stated that Jack's flying wing handled
so well "I'd never know the plane didn't have a tail if I didn't look
behind me."
In 1981 Jack Northrop, the aviation pioneer who founded Northrop
Corp., was granted an extraordinary government security clearance just
before his death to see the company's design for the B-2 Stealth
bomber, which resurrects the "flying wing" concept he had invented in
the 1940s.
I loved studying Jack's flying wing up close and personal on the ramp and then
watching the N9M show case its stability and maneuverability at the Chino air shows...