A development contract was signed in November of 1941 (the USAAC now having become the United States Army Air Forces = USAAF). Northrop pursued the requirement along the lines of its flying wing approached and developed the aforementioned N-9M as a starting point - this vehicle mimicking the form and function of what was to become a dimensionally larger future bomber. The primary players involved became Boeing, Consolidated and Northrop (the request was eventually fulfilled by the Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" in the post-World War 2 years). The formal request originated in April of 1941. Authorities sought an aircraft with a minimum range out to 10,000 miles hauling a war load of 10,000 pounds and reaching speeds of 450 miles per operating at altitudes up to 45,000 feet. The major problem facing engineers was in the inherent instability of flying wings due to the technology made available at the time.ĭuring the war years, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) sought to develop a long-range strategic bombing platform that could range from Allied-controlled bases outside of Europe and Britain in the event that the British Isles would someday fall to a German invasion - leaving few viable airbases for the Allies to continue warfare against the Nazi regime. Lacking vertical tail fins, there was also less drag encountered and the wide-area wings aided in natural lifting tendencies which reduced fuel consumption.
The flying wing offered several key qualities that conventionally-arranged aircraft did not - more internal space meant more volume for fuel, increasing operational ranges, and there would be more storage room for internally-held ordnance. All of this work paved the way for something grander still to come - the XB-35/YB-35 flying wing strategic bomber. Jack Northrop, founder of Northrop, had been playing with the concept of flying wings during the 1930s and 1940s and eventually produced the N-1M and N-9M designs while the proposed XP-79 fell to naught. The remains of the project fell to the to the Americans in the immediate post-war period and ended its days in museum storage. However only three of the type were completed after a first flight on March 1st, 1944. The most famous of these wartime models became the German Horten Ho 229 (detailed elsewhere on this site) which utilized an early form of stealth and was jet-powered to boot. The concept of the flying wing bomber had been on the minds of aeronautical engineers for quite some time before the forms of World War 2 (1939-1945) had made their presence known.
0 kommentar(er)
