Posted on 02/19/2020 8:35:25 AM PST by C19fan
In the years after World War I, when aviation was all the rage in Europe and North America but the Treaty of Versailles banned the production of military aircraft in Germany, glider clubs sprang up across the country. The brothers Walter and Reimar Horten, just 13 and 10 years old, respectively, joined the Bonn glider club in 1925, and soon turned from flying kites to a far more ambitious activity—experimenting on a futuristic, tail-less aircraft known as a flying wing.
The idea was not unprecedented; the German aerospace engineer Hugo Junkers had patented a flying-wing design in 1910. The concept is that an airplane’s fuselage and tail, while they provide lateral control, add a great deal of weight and drag and do not contribute to lift. A flying wing, without those appendages, would be vastly more efficient and thus travel farther, if it could be controlled. The Horten boys kept tinkering, and by 1932 had developed an all-wing glider, made largely of wood and linen, that actually got off the ground—though it had some stability problems.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
In before Indiana Jones.
Yup, you beat me to the punch.
The “semi clone” in Indiana Jones was most cool looking. The stability one is a very real one in these wing designs and the B2 manages it through computer control. (Thankfully, the software was not designed overseas.)
There might be a lesson in here somewhere. If the Germans had concentrated on building the FW 190 fighter and the Panther tank, they might have won the war - or at least they would have held out longer.
But instead they kept playing around with flying wings and expensive super-tanks.
Beautiful design and construction even in mockup. They were visionaries ahead of their time. In that day, the tires and wheels size and weight made flight difficult if not prohibitive if only by observation.
Just reread the article (albeit rather rapidly). Still never found out “why”, which the article led us to believe they’d reveal. Of course, those of us who flew can name reasons, but the article failed to deliver, IMHO.
” If the Germans had concentrated on building the FW 190 fighter and the Panther tank, they might have won the war - or at least they would have held out longer.”
Material shortages made them desperate.
Did this Horten hear a Who too?
The Panther was too heavy. On the Easter front it got bogged down and had crappy mileage.
On the western front it couldn’t maneuver in the cities and villages.
It was an impressive tank though.
I recall reading that without computerized FLY-by-wire, controlling the craft would be almost impossible at speed. I could be wrong.
“If the Germans had concentrated on building the FW 190 fighter and the Panther tank”,
They had no hope on day 1 of winning. Their programmed in production limits from raw materials, skilled labor, etc left them hopelessly unable to compete with US.
Their Geographic position utterly sucked and it’s also another reason why they lose every war they fight.
Last but not least, the moral aspects of their society doomed them. The reich crushed the ability of their society to rapidly respond, to create, to do better.
They murdered or drove away their nuclear scientists. They murdered droves of the highest IQ elements in their society.
Just being nazi doomed them no matter what fighter or tank they built.
“The stability one is a very real one in these wing designs”
What are the advantages of a flying wing?
The Northrup YB-49 was supposedly a nightmare to fly but it did fly!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49
Their idea of a labor force was to use slaves. A slave based production capacity is abysmal compared to getting paid a wage. The economy of the South was so far behind the North in large measure because of slavery. It’s the most inefficient economic engine known.
Who can imagine comparing a Willow Run or Kaiser ship worker with a death camp slave or a “free” German looking over their shoulder waiting for someone to denounce them?
Well, they were having problems getting enough steel and fuel to keep the war effort going, especially after the Russian offensive failed. So just doubling down on existing production wasn’t really an option. That’s why they were looking for a “superweapon” to win the fight decisively and quickly.
You made many excellent points in your last two posts, especially the geography aspect. But it is worth noting that communism is as stifling as is nazism. Yet Stalin won. The thousands of T34 tanks overcame the hundreds of Tiger tanks.
Also, Stalin wisely led his generals run the day-to-day operations. Hitler interfered in every last little detail. I even read somewhere that the British scrapped a plan to assassinate Hitler late in the war. They were afraid he might be replaced by somebody who was competent.
Hitler should have gone balls to the wall with the ME 262 as w pure fighter rather than fighter-bomber.
LOL. Yeah, the ones who were promoted after he mass-murdered all of his original generals. It kinda makes the next generation of generals pretty compliant. The did not do anything, ever, that went counter to Stalin's orders. That's not exactly trusting them to run operations independently.
Nothing Stalin did military was "wise". He bled his country white just to save his own namesake city, and still had to get lucky with an early and vicious Russian winter helping out.
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