German Wing Plane

The First Stealth Bomber 1944

With its smooth and elegant lines, this German plane might well have been a prototype for the American stealth bomber.

When World War II ended many German scientists accepted highly paid jobs in the United States of America. It is therefore logical to believe that they were encouraged to continue their work for their new employers.

30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar- invisible technology a flying wing was actually designed to fly through radar without being detected by the Nazi Regime.

Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 2-29 from blueprints, with startling results. The full-scale replica of the Ho 2-29 bomber was only made with materials available in the 1940s.

This stealth plane design was years ahead of its time. It was faster and more efficient than any other plane of the period and its stealth powers did work against radar.

Some experts are now convinced that given a little bit more time, the mass deployment of this aircraft could have changed the course of the war; but that is something we will never be able to prove.

Experts have been wrong before and this time I believe they are wrong again because experience has shown that it is the soldier on the ground with his finger on the trigger that actually wins wars.

Other than a nuclear bomb objects from the sky have never won wars; they might have won battles but never wars; at the end of the day it has always been the combatant that has won the fight. However some people will always believe the plane could have helped Adolf Hitler win the war.

The Horten 2-29 Flying Wing

The Horten Ho 2-29 was first built and tested in the air in March 1944, it was designed with a greater range and speed than any plane previously built and was the first aircraft to use the stealth technology now deployed by the U.S. In its latest range of B-2 type bombers.

Hitler's engineers only made three prototypes, and they were tested by being dragged behind a glider. The German’s were not able to build them on an industrial scale before the Allied forces invaded. From Panzer tanks through to the V-2 rocket, it has long been recognized that Germany's technological expertise during the war was at times years ahead of the Allies.

But in 1943, when the Nazi high command realised that the war was beginning to turn against them, and were desperate to develop new weapons to try to help turn the tide.

Nazi bombers were suffering badly when faced with the speed and manoeuvrability of the versatile Spitfire and other Allied fighters. Hitler was also desperate to develop a bomber that had the range and capacity to reach the United States.

In 1943 Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering demanded that designers come up with a bomber that would meet his '1,000, 1,000, 1,000' requirements - one that could carry 1,000kg over 1,000km flying at 1,000km/h.

The German's were desperate for new weapons

The scientists were working on many theories but they were all still on the drawing board. A flying wing was the closest to completion it was being designed as a long range bomber. The jet engine was still its early days of production, but their air intakes were years ahead of their time.

Two pilot brothers in their thirties, Reimar and Walter Horten, had suggested the 'flying wing' design which they had been working on for years. They were convinced that with the wings less drag and lack of wind resistance such a plane would meet Goering's requirements.

Construction on a prototype was begun in Goettingen in Germany in 1944. The centre pod was made from a welded steel tube, and was designed to be powered by a BMW 003 engines. The most important innovation was Reimar Horten's idea to coat it in a mix of charcoal dust and wood glue.

Inventors Reimar and Walter Horten were inspired to build the Ho 2-29 by the deaths of Luftwaffe pilots in the Battle of Britain. The 142-foot wingspan bomber was submitted for approval in 1944. It is estimated that it would have been able to fly from Berlin to NYC and back without refuelling. By using this advanced wing design and six BMW 003A or eight Junker Jumo 004B turbojets.

They believed the electromagnetic waves of radar could be absorbed, and in conjunction with the aircraft's sculpted surfaces the craft would be rendered almost invisible to radar detectors.

The characteristics of modern stealth bombers

This was a similar method eventually used by the United States of America in their first stealth aircrafts in the early 1980s, and later the F-117A Nighthawk. The plane was covered in radar absorbent paint with a high graphite content, which has a similar chemical make-up to charcoal.

After the war the Americans captured the prototype Ho 2-29s along with the blueprints and used some of their technological advances to aid their own designs. But experts always doubted claims that the Horten could actually function as a stealth aircraft.

Now using the blueprints and the only remaining prototype craft, Northrop-Grumman (the defence firm behind the B-2) built a full-size replica of a Horten Ho 2-29.

Luckily for Britain the Horten flying wing fighter-bomber never got much further than the blueprint stage. Thanks to the use of wood and carbon, and jet engines integrated into the fuselage, and its blended surfaces, the plane could have been in London eight minutes after the radar system detected it.

It took them 2,500 man-hours and $250,000 to construct, and although their replica cannot fly, it was radar-tested by placing it on a 50ft articulating pole and exposing it to electromagnetic waves. The team demonstrated that although the aircraft is not completely invisible to the type of radar used in the war, it would have been stealthy enough and fast enough to ensure that it could reach London before Spitfires could be scrambled to intercept it.

“If the Germans had had time to develop these aircraft, they could well have had an impact,” says Peter Murton, aviation expert from the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, in Cambridgeshire. “In theory the flying wing was a very efficient aircraft design which minimized drag. It is one of the reasons that it could reach very high speeds in dive and glide and had such an incredibly long range.”

German Wing Plane

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