The YB-49 never entered production, being passed over in favor of the more conventional Convair B-36 piston-driven design. Design work performed in the development of the YB-35 and YB-49 nonetheless proved to be valuable to Northrop decades later in the eventual development of the B-2 stealth bomber, which entered service in the early 1990s.
With the XB-35 program seriously behind schedule by 1944, and the end of piston-engined combat aircraft in sight, the production contract for this propeller-driven type was cancelled in May of that year. Nevertheless, the Flying Wing design was still sufficiently interesting to the Air Force that work was continued on testing a single YB-35A production aircraft.[2]
Among the aircraft later completed were two airframes that the Air Force ordered be fitted with jet propulsion and designated as YB-49s.[2] The first of these new YB-49 jet-powered aircraft flew on 22 October 1947 (from Northrop airfield in Hawthorne, CA) and immediately proved more promising than its piston engined counterpart. The YB-49 set an unofficial endurance record of staying continually above 40,000ft (12,200m) for 6.5 hours.[3]
The second YB-49 was lost when it crashed on June 5, 1948, killing its pilot, Major Daniel Forbes (for whom Forbes Air Force Base was named), co-pilot CaptainGlen Edwards (for whom Edwards Air Force Base is named), and three other crew members,[3] one of whom, 1st Lieutenant Edward Lee Swindell, was a crew member on the Boeing B-29 that assisted Chuck Yeager in breaking the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 aircraft. Their aircraft suffered structural failure, with both outer wing sections becoming detached from the center section. Speculation at the time was that the YB-49 was lost due to excessive pullout loads imposed on the heavy airframe when a scheduled flight test of the large bomber's stall recovery resulted in a sudden and dramatic high-speed, nose-over dive. The post-stall high-speed dive resulted from the clean, low-drag, all-wing design, which gave the YB-49 a rapid speed increase in any type of dive. Fellow YB-49 test pilot Robert Cardenas later claimed that the YB-49 rotated backwards in stall, and that he warned Edwards about it. Jack Northrop later countered that such a behavior was impossible for the all-wing design.[4]
During flight tests in the 1940s, it was noticed that the aircraft had a small radar cross-section, due to its flying wing design. Decades later, this stealthy detail would prove crucial to the design of Northrop Grumman's advanced, all-wing B-2 bomber.[5][6]
On 9 February 1949, the first YB-49 flew from Muroc Air Force Base in California to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., in 4 hours 25 minutes,[3] after which President Truman ordered a flyby of Pennsylvania Avenue at rooftop level.[4] The return flight from Andrews was marred when four of the eight engines had to be shut down due to oil starvation. Inspection after a successful emergency landing at Winslow Airport, Arizona, revealed no oil had been replaced in these engines at Wright after the Muroc-to-Andrews leg,[3] raising a suspicion of industrial sabotage.[2]
The last operational YB-49 prototype was destroyed on 15 March 1950, during high-speed taxi trials at Muroc Field. The nose wheel began to encounter severe vibration problems and finally collapsed;[3] the aircraft was completely destroyed in the ensuing fire. The taxi trials took place with the YB-49's fuel tanks full, an unusual testing procedure, fanning further speculation of industrial sabotage of the aircraft.[2]
Bombing target tests showed a tendency of flying wings to "hunt" in yaw after turns and when flying in "disturbed" air, degrading bombing accuracy. It was thought that one of the new Honeywell autopilots, with yaw damping, would correct this flaw. Northrop chief test pilot on the YB-35 and YB-49 programs Max Stanley contends in the 1992 Discovery Channel documentary "The Wing Will Fly", the adaptation of the autopilot in this dual function "damped out the directional oscillations to the degree where... I think you would say it met the (military) specifications." Brig. General Robert Cardenas also flew the YB-49 during many of its test flights, praising the aircraft for its marvelous performance, while also noting the YB-49 required a very long bomb run to damp directional oscillations. Many of these challenges would eventually be overcome when fly-by-wire systems were developed in the 1950s, which were first used in regular production for the Convair B-58 Hustler and then when computer-generated artificial stability became available in the 1970s, culminating in the development of the all-wing Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
The conversion of the long-range XB-35 to jet power essentially cut the effective range of the aircraft in half, putting it in the medium-range bomber category with Boeing's new swept-winged jet bomber the B-47 Stratojet. The B-47 was optimized for high-altitude and high-speed flight and, in an era where speed and altitude were becoming the name of the game, the YB-49's thick airfoil could never be maximized for high-speed performance. In the same Discovery Channel documentary, former Air Force Flight Test Center Historian Dr. James Young states his opinion that while political gamesmanship and back room dealing certainly played a role in the aircraft's demise, the Flying Wing program was ultimately cancelled for solid technological reasons.
Operational history
In June 1948, the Air Force ordered the type into full production as the RB-49A reconnaissance aircraft (company designations N-38 and N-39[7]).[2] It was powered by six jet engines, two of them externally mounted in under-wing pods, ruining the aircraft's sleek, aerodynamic lines, but extending its range by carrying additional fuel. The use of jet engines had resulted in considerably increased fuel consumption and decreased its range significantly below that of the rival Convair B-36.[2] One YB-35 airframe (s/n 42-102369) was chosen as the prototype for the RB-49 and designated YRB-49A.
During early 1950, the remaining YB-35Bs airframes, which were being converted to YRB-49As, were ordered scrapped. Flight testing of the sole remaining YB-49 prototype ended 14 March 1950. On 15 March 1950, that program was canceled. Coincidentally, the sole remaining YB-49 prototype suffered a high-speed taxiing accident and, as previously noted, was totally destroyed in the ensuing fire.
All remaining Flying Wing bomber airframes, except for the sole YRB-49A reconnaissance version, were ordered chopped up by Symington, the materials smelted down using portable smelters brought to Northrop's facility, in plain sight of its employees. Jack Northrop retired from both the company he founded and aviation shortly after he saw his dream of a pure, all-wing aircraft destroyed.[8] His son, John Northrop Jr., later recounted during an interview his father's devastation and lifelong suspicion that his Flying Wing project had been sabotaged by political influence and back room wheeling-and-dealing between Convair and the Air Force.[9]
Northrop YRB-49A with six engines, two of which are mounted externally
The sole prototype reconnaissance platform, the YRB-49A, first flew on 4 May 1950. After only 13 flights, testing ended abruptly on 26 April 1951. It was then flown back to Northrop's headquarters from Edwards Air Force Base (formerly Muroc AAF) on what would be its last flight. There, this remaining flying wing sat abandoned at the edge of Northrop's Ontario airport for more than two years. It was finally ordered scrapped on 1 December 1953.[10]
In a 1979 videotaped news interview, Jack Northrop broke his long silence and said publicly that all Flying Wing contracts had been canceled because Northrop Aircraft Corporation refused to merge with competitor Convair at Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington's strong suggestion, because, according to Jack Northrop, Convair's merger demands were "grossly unfair to Northrop."[11] Allegations of political influences in the cancellation of the Flying Wing were investigated by the House Armed Services Committee, where Symington publicly denied exerting pressure on Northrop to merge.[12]
Northrop's Flying Wing program may have been terminated due to its technical difficulties and the program being behind schedule and over budget. Another possible contributing factor to the cancellation may have been Northrop spreading its small engineering staff too widely in other experimental programs. While the competing propeller-driven Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" was an obsolete World War II-era design by this time, and had been having just as many or even more development problems, the Air Force seemed to have greater confidence that its more conventional design and "teething" problems could be overcome, when compared to those of the more radical Flying Wing. While the YB-49 had well-documented performance and design issues, the B-36 program needed more development money.[13] At one time, it appeared the B-36 program might be canceled as well. But the Air Force and the Texas Congressional delegation desired to have a production program for their large Fort Worth aircraft production factory, and Convair had much more effective lobbyists in Washington DC. The Northrop Corporation was always a technological trailblazer, but the independent nature of Jack Northrop often collided with the political wheeling-and-dealing in Washington, which gravitated toward massive military appropriations; consequently, the obsolete Convair B-36 prevailed. When the YB-49 jet bomber was canceled, Northrop was awarded a much smaller, lower profile production contract for its straight-winged F-89 Scorpion fighter as compensation for the canceled Flying Wing.[14][15]
The YB-49 and its modern counterpart, the B-2 Spirit, both built either by Northrop or Northrop Grumman, have the same wingspan: 172.0ft (52.4m). Flight test data collected from the original YB-49 test flights were used in the development of the B-2 bomber.[citation needed] Shortly before his death in February 1981, Jack Northrop learned from the Northrop Corporation of the company's flying wing bid for the future B-2; he remarked: "I know why God has kept me alive for the past 25 years."[16] The new bomber would be publicly displayed for the first time in 1988.[17]
Combat range: 4,000mi (6,400km, 3,500nmi) Other sources say 2,806 [21] with 10,000lb (4,536kg) bombload, 365 Knots in 8:27 hours with 10,000 lbs of bombs.
The Horten H.IX, RLM designation Ho 229 was a German prototype fighter/bomber designed by Reimar and Walter Horten to be built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. Developed at a late stage of the Second World War, it was one of the first flying wing aircraft to be powered by jet engines.
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blisters, booms, or vertical stabilizers.
The McDonnell XF-85 Goblin is an American prototype fighter aircraft conceived during World War II by McDonnell Aircraft. It was intended to deploy from the bomb bay of the Convair B-36 bomber as a parasite fighter. The XF-85's intended role was to defend bombers from hostile interceptor aircraft, a need demonstrated during World War II. McDonnell built two prototypes before the Air Force (USAF) terminated the program.
The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, although it was exceeded in span and weight by the one-off Hughes Hercules. It has the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft. The B-36 was capable of intercontinental flight without refueling.
The Convair B-58 Hustler, designed and produced by American aircraft manufacturer Convair, was the first operational bomber capable of Mach 2 flight.
The Convair YB-60 was a prototype heavy bomber built by Convair for the United States Air Force in the early 1950s. It was a purely jet-powered development of Convair's earlier mixed-power B-36 Peacemaker.
The Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 is an American single-seat, twin-engine, stealth fighter technology demonstrator prototype designed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The design team, with Northrop as the prime contractor, was a finalist in the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) demonstration/validation competition, battling the YF-22 team for full-scale development and production. Two YF-23 prototypes were built.
The Northrop YB-35/XB-35, Northrop designation N-9 or NS-9, were experimental heavy bomber aircraft developed by the Northrop Corporation for the United States Army Air Forces during and shortly after World War II. The airplane used the radical and potentially very efficient flying wing design, in which the tail section and fuselage are eliminated and all payload is carried in a thick wing. Only prototypes and pre-production aircraft were built, although interest remained strong enough to warrant further development of the design as a jet bomber, under the designation YB-49.
The Northrop X-4 Bantam is a prototype small twinjet aircraft manufactured by Northrop Corporation in 1948. It had no horizontal tail surfaces, depending instead on combined elevator and aileron control surfaces for control in pitch and roll attitudes, almost exactly in the manner of the similar-format, rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. Some aerodynamicists had proposed that eliminating the horizontal tail would also do away with stability problems at fast speeds resulting from the interaction of supersonic shock waves from the wings and the horizontal stabilizers. The idea had merit, but the flight control systems of that time prevented the X-4 from achieving any success.
The Boeing B-50 Superfortress is an American strategic bomber. A post–World War II revision of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, it was fitted with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial engines, stronger structure, a taller tail fin, and other improvements. It was the last piston-engined bomber built by Boeing for the United States Air Force, and was refined into Boeing's final such design, the prototype B-54. Although not as well known as its direct predecessor, the B-50 was in USAF service for nearly 20 years.
John Knudsen Northrop was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939.
Glen Walter Edwards was a test pilot for the United States Air Force. He is the namesake of Edwards Air Force Base.
The Northrop N-9M was an approximately one-third scale, 60-foot (18 m) span all-wing aircraft used for the development of the full size, 172-foot (52 m) wingspan Northrop XB-35 and YB-35 flying wing long-range, heavy bomber. First flown in 1942, the N-9M was the third in a lineage of all-wing Northrop aircraft designs that began in 1929 when Jack Northrop succeeded in early experiments with his single pusher propeller, twin-tailed, twin-boom, all stressed metal skin Northrop X-216H monoplane, and a decade later, the dual-propeller N-1M of 1939–1941. Northrop's pioneering all-wing aircraft would lead Northrop Grumman many years later to eventually develop the advanced B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which debuted in 1989 in US Air Force inventory.
The Convair XB-46 was a single example of an experimental medium jet bomber which was developed in the mid-1940s but which never saw production or active duty. It competed with similar designs, the North American XB-45 and Martin XB-48, all of which saw little use after the successful development of the Boeing XB-47.
The Air Force Test Center (AFTC) is a development and test organization of the United States Air Force. It conducts research, development, test, and evaluation of aerospace systems from concept to deployment. It has test flown every aircraft in the Army Air Force's and the Air Force's inventory since World War II. The center employs nearly 13,000 people, and controls the second largest base in the Air Force.
The Northrop N-1M, also known by the nickname "Jeep", is a retired American experimental aircraft used in the development of the flying wing concept by Northrop Aircraft during the 1940s.
The Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet is a unique prototype fighter interceptor built by the Northrop Corporation. It was one of the most radical of the experimental aircraft built during World War II. Ultimately, it was unsuccessful and did not enter production.
A supersonic aircraft is an aircraft capable of supersonic flight, that is, flying faster than the speed of sound. Supersonic aircraft were developed in the second half of the twentieth century. Supersonic aircraft have been used for research and military purposes, but only two supersonic aircraft, the Tupolev Tu-144 and the Concorde, ever entered service for civil use as airliners. Fighter jets are the most common example of supersonic aircraft.
The Douglas XB-43 Jetmaster is an American 1940s jet-powered prototype bomber. The XB-43 was a development of the XB-42, replacing the piston engines of the XB-42 with two General Electric J35 engines of 4,000 lbf (17.8 kN) thrust each. Despite being the first American jet bomber to fly, it suffered stability issues and the design did not enter production.
References
Notes
↑ FIREPOWER: THE WEAPONS THE PROFESSIONALS USE - AND HOW. X-PLANES OF THE 1940s & 1950s, #58 Orbis Publishing 1990
1 2 3 Post World War II Bombers by Marcelle Size Knaack, page 545
Bibliography
Coleman, Ted. Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing: The Real Story Behind the Stealth Bomber. New York: Paragon House, 1988. ISBN1-55778-079-X.
Donald, David, editor. "Northrop Flying Wings". Encyclopedia of World Aircraft. Etobicoke, Ontario: Prospero Books, 1997. ISBN1-85605-375-X.
Fitzsimons, Bernard, ed. "Scorpion, Northrop F-89." Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare, Volume 21. London: Phoebus, 1978. ISBN0-8393-6175-0.
Maloney, Edward T. Northrop Flying Wings. Corona del Mar, California: World War II Publications, 1988. ISBN0-915464-00-4.
O'Leary, Michael. "Wings of Northrop, Conclusion". Air Classics, Volume 44, Number 3, March 2008, Challenge Publications, Inc. ISSN0002-2241. (Heavily illustrated, authoritative YB-49 article)
Pape, Garry and John Campbell. Northrop Flying Wings: A History of Jack Northrop's Visionary Aircraft. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1995. ISBN0-88740-689-0.
Pelletier, Alain J. "Towards the Ideal Aircraft: The Life and Times of the Flying Wing, Part Two". Air Enthusiast, No. 65, September–October 1996, pp.8–19. ISSN0143-5450.
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