The flying wing.

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
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John Baker
OK, I have a question. Today I went to the air show at Gillespie Field (KSEE) in El Cajon. They had a flying wing, prop driven twin, pusher type, built in the early 1940s. It had no rudder or vertical fin at all. Very cool to watch it fly, but I got to thinking, how does it control yaw? How do they maintain coordinated flight without a rudder?

John
 
A Horten ?

Most of those flying wings use spoilers for yaw control.
 
Probably (actually almost certainly) the Northrop N9M based at Chino. They have split ailerons that open for yaw control.
 
John Baker said:
Yes, that was the plane. Thanks, it was just one of those things that was bugging me while driving home.

John
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I will admit I have a hard time visualizing exactly how it all works... but all that really matters is that it has a yoke and rudder pedals, and they do what most pilots would expect them to do.
That is the real miracle of a flying-wing airplane! :D
 
Ron Levy said:
...also built by (surprise!) Northrop -- wherever did they get the idea? See also the middle planes of the series, the Northrop YB-35 and YB-49.
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Supposedly, Jack Northrop said, when he saw a B-2 fly:
"Now I know why I have lived so long".

He was working hard on that idea for a long time, despite all odds; I'm sure that was very satisfying for him. And he deserved it.
But of course, so many ideas from Europe influenced that whole program- have to give them "props".
 
Well, the first flight of the B-2 was July 17, 1989

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b2bomber/

I remember watching it on the big screen of the Northrop booth at the Dayton Air and Trade Show that year.

John Northrop passed away February 18, 1981

http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/northrop.htm

According to Ted Coleman's book, Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing : the story behind the Stealth bomber, Mr. Northrop felt vindicated when he was shown classified design drawings of the B-2 in his hospital bed just shortly before his death. Can't put my hands on my copy of the book right now, but I believe that was when the quote was made.

rottydaddy said:
Supposedly, Jack Northrop said, when he saw a B-2 fly:
"Now I know why I have lived so long".

He was working hard on that idea for a long time, despite all odds; I'm sure that was very satisfying for him. And he deserved it.
But of course, so many ideas from Europe influenced that whole program- have to give them "props".
Click to expand...
 
Steve said:
Well, the first flight of the B-2 was July 17, 1989

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b2bomber/

I remember watching it on the big screen of the Northrop booth at the Dayton Air and Trade Show that year.

John Northrop passed away February 18, 1981

http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/northrop.htm

According to Ted Coleman's book, Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing : the story behind the Stealth bomber, Mr. Northrop felt vindicated when he was shown classified design drawings of the B-2 in his hospital bed just shortly before his death. Can't put my hands on my copy of the book right now, but I believe that was when the quote was made.
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That'll learn me to not believe what airshow announcers say... :D
 
Anyone a fan of Scifi should remember the YB-49 in "War of the Worlds". A damned fine plane ahead of it's time.
 
there is a group in Germany working on building a Horten Flying Wing glider. It'll be awesome if it ever flies. In the 50's there was one in the US. It'd be pretty amazing to share a thermal with one. massive aspect ratio and sweep. Looks like a UFO.
 
tonycondon said:
there is a group in Germany working on building a Horten Flying Wing glider. It'll be awesome if it ever flies. In the 50's there was one in the US. It'd be pretty amazing to share a thermal with one. massive aspect ratio and sweep. Looks like a UFO.
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Not one of the Horten types, but in the 80s the university flying club in Braunschweig built the SB-13 prototype:

SB%2013%20Flug2.jpg


Performance was quite good but the design had some 'challenging' issues with pitch stability and eventually it was donated to a museum.
 
Steve said:
Well, the first flight of the B-2 was July 17, 1989

snip...
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I remember that. I have a pin that was carried on that first flight (it carried one for every employee), and a photo signed by the test pilot. I worked at Northrop at the time.

For a while, I made paper flying wings, like hang gliders to share with kids. Easy to do, just cut the shape, round out the wings, and add a little tape on the nose for proper CG.
 
Speaking of yaw... what are the stall characteristics of a flying wing, and its ability to get into, or recover from, a spin?

PS.. the Horten flying wing and N9M mentioned in this thread didn't require any computer aided controls to fly.. makes you appreciate 1940s engineering
 
I have no idea of the spin characteristics of the real N9M. I suspect it would not recover well.
I always have at least two radio control, tailless, flying wings ready to go each season because I know I will manage to put one into a spin, and as soon as it goes flat, I just pull the throttle and put down the transmitter, because I know it's not going to recover.
I really love the Horton and Northrop wings, and have been experimenting for years with flying wings.
Center of gravity, center of lift, and getting the exact amount of "reflex" in the trailing edge can go a long way to tame pitch sensitivity, but I can't get rid of it completely.
It's going to manifest itself either at the low end or the high end of the speed range, depending on how you balance the plane.
BTW: There are some great Youtube videos of Horton models flying in Germany.
Also, there was a designer in Brazil who built an real flying wing.
 
Why is it called a "flying wing"? Does not the wing on your Cessna/Piper/Cirrus/Mooney/etc also fly?
 
Just came across this today. New flying wing going into production, so they claim.
horton.jpg

Horten Aircraft presents its civilian flying wing aircraft

After three years of development, the German aircraft manufacturer, Horten Aircraft GmbH, premieres its prototype flying wing, which is already undergoing flight testing. This aircraft is a highly modern economical two-seat tailless light aircraft without a fuselage. It will be displayed in public for the first time at the air show in Friedrichshafen.

"Due to its low aerodynamic resistance, the flying wing flies farther and faster than a comparable aircraft with a fuselage," says Bernhard Mattlener, Managing Director of the company, which belongs to the LIFT Air group. "The design of the airframe makes it easily adaptable for installing new propulsion technologies we anticipate will become available in the future.” Horten Aircraft plans further developments, such as unmanned or multi-seat versions of its current prototype. The aircraft will be built at the company's headquarters at Kindel Airfield near Eisenach.
 
rottydaddy said:
Supposedly, Jack Northrop said, when he saw a B-2 fly:
"Now I know why I have lived so long".

He was working hard on that idea for a long time, despite all odds; I'm sure that was very satisfying for him. And he deserved it.
But of course, so many ideas from Europe influenced that whole program- have to give them "props".
Click to expand...

Yes he did as he began to tear up. The B-2 became viable because the need for stealth, low RCS, and one of the enabling technologies was the advent of fly-by-wire control.
 
Rcmutz said:
and one of the enabling technologies was the advent of fly-by-wire control
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This is what impresses me so much about the Horten designs.. these seem straight out of steam punk science fiction.. and yet they flew, by pure analog controls

upload_2019-3-10_20-45-43.png
 
rottydaddy said:
That'll learn me to not believe what airshow announcers say... :D
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Yep, they make it up as they go along. It's amazing the crap they spew. Apparently, they feel the audience will die if there is a pause in their oral diarrhea.


We were driving down I-90 in Northern Indiana and a B-2 passed overhead. Now that is something you don't see everyday.
Got a low pass flyby of the B-2 (just before AF-1, and I am using that term correctly) at Kitty Hawk on Dec 10, 2003.
 
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