The first Stealth Aircraft

The first stealth aircraft was designed in 1928, and flown in 1929, as a test of a new concept: a flying wing.  It was built by John Northrup, who came back to the flying wing design after WWII.  The propeller driven version of the post WWII wing was called the B-36, and with jet engines it became the B-49.  At YB-49 is a movie of the B-49 taking off. When it first flew, a company press release gushed ..."Spewing a twin trail of black smoke, the sky monster swept into the air before the awed thousands gathered to witness the historic take-off."

The wing had a range of 3200 miles, max speed of 493 mph, wingspan of 172 feet.  A test model of the B-49 crashed in 1950, killing test pilot Glen Edwards.  Muroc Air Force Base was renamed Edwards Air Force Base in his honor.  A second prototype crashed when taxiing.  The plane's design had great promise in range and lifting capacity, because the design minimized drag, but the technology of the day was not capable of controlling it in flight.  The designers needed the computers not available until 20 years later to help fly the aircraft.  More information at B-49: The Northrup Flying Wing.

Comments

[Avi Solomon]

Great Blog you have here:)
Here's the F117 Stealth Patent US 5,250,950:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,250,950.WKU.&OS=PN/5,250,950&RS=PN/5,250,950

It's NorthrOp...

[carol lynn Nielsen]

I was wondering why you did not mention my dad in the area of folding winged airplanes? He invented the plane-mobile. He wrote the book An Airplane in Every Garage. He started on it in 1931. Thank you. Carol Lynn