Posted on 02/25/2013 3:49:20 PM PST by EnjoyingLife
U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber sitting on the flight line at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, USA. Via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-200905.htm (medium, large)
The Photographer
Staff Sgt. Eric T. Sheler, United States Air Force
In 1976, with his health failing, he felt compelled to communicate to NASA his belief in the low drag high lift concept inherent in the flying wing. NASA replied that the idea had technological merit comforting Northrop that his flying wing concepts hadn't been completely abandoned. By the late 1970s a variety of illnesses had left him unable to walk or speak. Shortly before his death in 1981, he was given clearance to see designs and hold a scale model of the B-2 Spirit which shared many of the design features of his YB-35 and YB-49 designs.[4] Northrop was reported to have written on a sheet of paper "Now I know why God has kept me alive for 25 years". In the Wing Will Fly documentary, B-2 project designer John Cashen says
"As he held this model in his shaking hands, it was as if you could see his entire history with the flying wing passing through his mind"
Jack Northrop died 10 months later knowing his life's passion would be incorporated in the country's most technologically advanced Cold War weapon system.
Jack Northrop would be proud.
Sorry don't remember how to set the size.
The real crime is that for whatever reason, the US ordered that the remaining planes be scrapped. What a shame. Can you imagine one of those in the Smithsonian Flight Museum?
There was a show on “The History Channel” about the flying wing. If I remember right, the original design was credited to the Horton Brothers of Germany during WWII.
It is vary rare for them to land one at a base like Langley. They usually only go in and then back to Whiteman AFB with a rare landing allowed at Diago Garcia or Guam as I recall.
The crazy thing was that they had 9 of them built
and the Sec Def had them destroyed. Symington I think
it was, just insanity.
With islam in the White House, the US inventory is largely irrelevant - until the mullahs decide to use it for another holocaust.
If alive today Jack would lose the meat display case. Despite his passion he never had any interest in getting a pilot’s license.
i hadn't heard the term before. pretty funny
I saw one of these at the Wright Patt Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH. I stood there so long in awe with my mouth open my family left me and my tongue dried out. It was truly an awesome bird.
I think the A-10 was my sentimental favorite. It is the only gun to my knowledge that is so compelling they built a plane to carry it to the battlefield. She fires ~65, 3/4 pound projectiles per second when the “hawg farts.”
Wright Patt is a good stop if you ever get close.
I always get a kick out of the concept of doing bombing missions from Whiteman.
A young pilot gets out of bed, gets told to take out the garbage and feed the dog, hops in his car and goes to a briefing room somewhere.
48 hours later, he’s dog tired, getting out of his car...and his fuzzy slippered wife it standing there demanding to know why he didn’t put ALL the trash out.
Somewhere in between he was over a foreign land dropping bombs on the enemy.
What I think is particularly funny is they have an entry control point, with nobody performing the entry control function.
Now, of course, they are trying to get a good picture and don’t want an Airman in the picture, but the ropes and cones sans guard is pretty funny.
Just the start carts, no ordinance? I guess it’s fully
loaded and ready to go.
So they had an area roped off with just tires and landing gear struts standing in the appropriate spots, with a nice sign identifying it. (Just like the rest of the stuff on static display.) On all the listings for the specs, it said "You wouldn't believe it anyhow".
flying wing ping
Yep, the F-117. Made it's (most) public debut in the first Gulf War. They had one on display at Wright Patt last time I was there 2-3 years ago.
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