Comments by "FiveCentsPlease" (@FiveCentsPlease) on "Insane Flying Wing Jet Fighter To Save Germany - Horten Ho 229 Nazi UFO" video.

+ Sempronio Densso The "Amerika Bomber" was only a design idea on paper and was not constructed. Meanwhile, Northrop got his funding contract in 1941 and was well ahead designing his flying wing bomber.
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+ delta lion The B2 is a redesign of the YB-35 and YB-49. They are the same size and fly the exact same mission.
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+ John Willis The 229 was not in a secret warehouse. The government was done with it by 1947 and the Foreign Equipment aircraft that were to be kept were taken to Orchard Field, Chicago and stuck in a hangar. By 1950 many of those aircraft and the 229 had been donated to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian kept the 229 in a wooden container in poor storage conditions (including outside) until the 1970s until it was finally moved into inside storage. This is why it is such rotten mess of dry rot and fungus today.
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+ TheEnchiladaKid Northrop was awarded the government contract to start building his big YB-35 bomber in 1941, long before they Horten brothers started the 229 work. The B2 is based on the original YB mission and design.
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+ Cindy Hurd Northrop at least had developed mechanical yaw dampers for the YB-49 just before Stuart Symington killed the program to punish the company.
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+@garrington120 They few, in that the V1 prototype was an unpowered glider that flew until a crash. And the V2 prototype was the first with jet engines and it flew for two hours of testing until a crash. That was all of the flying that the 229 program achieved.
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+ LAshutterbug The N9M at Planes of Fame crashed and was destroyed in April 2019. Museum pilot David Vopat was killed. It was maintenance flight and the NTSB report concludes unexplained loss of control. No announcement on rebuild plans but it was a high speed impact and there is little left of it.
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@semproniodensso3353 The original design specs requested from Northrop was a 10,000-mile range for the B-35 wing development. Northrop was ahead of the Horten brothers in designing that platform.
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@grum__1 Flying wing theory from the 1920s and 1930s was low drag and fuel efficiency. Absolutely nothing about stealth. Northrop and the Hortens were students of those theories.
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+ @pauledwards8008 The US gave the captured (and unfinished) Ho-229 V3 to the British over the summer of 1945 for study. After assembly, nobody wanted to fly, and the British were looking whether RR turbines would fit but they did not. By late August 1945 the British didn't want it and it was in a shipping crate on the docks in New Jersey. No attempts were made to fly the V3 in the US either and it was kept by the AAF until it was donated to the Smithsonian around 1950.
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+ Hastur The Alles never flew any of the Horten aircraft. V1 and V2 were destroyed and lost in the summer of 1945. The V3 wasn't finished when the Allies found it. V4, V5, and V6 were just partial metal frames and were probably destroyed in place at the Gotha factory.
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+ LW43 Real only as series of different prototype designs. There was no final production design - it was still a research and prototype project.
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+ Mark12 Strang The 229 was not a wonder weapon. It was just a concept design for a flying wing bomber, and the remaining example is just the third iteration of the series.
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+ TheEvilBanana There was a variant of the Jumo 004 that was optimized for afterburning but it only added about 400lbs of thrust and did not reach production.
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@widjojohuang7854 It wasn't a fighter, it was a series of prototypes to build a medium bomber. They didn't get far into the program before the end of the war--just three prototypes that were all different. The first prototype was a glider that flew until it was destroyed in a landing accident. The second prototype did fly with jet engines but only for about two hours of testing before a fatal crash on 18-Feb-1945. That is really as far the Horten brothers got before the war ended because the third prototype that survives today was not finished when it was captured by Patton's forces in the Gotha workshop. (Prototypes four, five, and six were also in the shop but they were barely started.) The goal of the 229 program was never "stealth." It was about speed and fuel efficiency, keeping with the flying wing and tailless aircraft theories from the 1920s and 1930s.
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@widjojohuang7854 Arguably, the F-117 was the first fighter designed specifically for stealth. For the invention of "stealth" I think that it could be credited to the Japanese in WW2. In the 1943, researchers and radar experts at Tokyo Engineering College began testing paint additives to reduce the long-range radar signatures of Japanese Navy aircraft. Various metal powders were added to the paint to confuse radar. Most of these notes were destroyed but US Naval Intelligence interrogated the researchers for info.
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@widjojohuang7854 Not undetectable, just a low signature because of the small cross-section. I'd argue that the tests that were done with the wooden model made by Northrop were not fully accurate because the real example from WW2 had a lot more metal in it and on the outside.
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@widjojohuang7854 The engine fairings were welded steel, front to back for heat protection. Plus the engine turbines and the welded tube frame. That's a lot of metal.
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+ Gaming Bruh The B2 is the same size as the YB-49 and based on the original mission and data from Northrop. It's three times larger than the Ho-229.
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+ wasay Khan No, because the 229 program was an experimental flight test program that was nowhere near ready for production before the war ended. They were just making prototypes and had very little flight hours.
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+ Jordan Tyndall And it was only the third iteration in a series of experimental prototypes for a flying wing program. It was not a production aircraft.
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+ TheSpinkels Correct, although it was the Smithsonian conducting the lab sample studies. Just wood and glue. The engines were also faired over in steel panels from front to back for heat shielding --- there was a lot of metal in it.
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+ Michael Dunne Correct and well put. The V2 crashed on the very flight to measure some speed data. The entire 229 program was not mature at all, just three experimental prototypes that were not ready. Innovative, to give the Hortens their due credit. But it was not ready for service and not the wonder-weapon is has been portrayed to be.
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@olli2591 The YB-49 was just the jet version of the YB-35 that Northrop began constructing in 1941 when they were awarded the contract. The N-1M was a research prototype and the N-9M was a one-third scale proof-of-concept of the YB-35. The wing program was slowed by subcontractor disputes, etc. Northrop didn't need anything from the 229 to complete the YB-49. And the B-2 just carries the YB-49 concept into the modern era. They are the same size and fly the same mission profile.
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+ Pedro Leitao Jack Northrop was awarded a government contract to build his much larger flying wing in 1941. Northrop didn't need to copy anything from the Germans because they were doing their own work. The modern B2 is a continuation of the YB bomber program that was cancelled in 1949.
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+ Sohrab Roozbahani They didn't fly much at all. This was an experimental aircraft program. The first example was a glider that was eventually destroyed during a bad landing. The second prototype did fly with jet engines, but only for about two hours total before a fatal crash. The third prototype that was captured and survives today has never flown. The Horten program was not mature and nothing was ready for production.
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@demanischaffer The Northrop model department made a wooden and fiberglass mock up of the 229. The original aircraft had a welded tube frame and steel panels around the engines for heat protection. There probably would have been more radar return.
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+@sadev101 Not at all. The V3 229 prototype was first given to the UK to study and then back to the US by August 1945. It remained in Ohio until all of the captured aircraft were up for disposal and General Hap Arnold wanted to save some for posterity. The aircraft that were to be saved were moved and stored in an empty hangar at Orchard Field, Chicago until they were donated to the Smithsonian in 1949-1950. Meanwhile, Northrop's manufacturing for his flying wing was in California.
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