Lol man religion has nothing to do with it - I guess it was Northrop that built the replica and then tested it on their pole/radar range out in the desert and those were their results -
Horton Flying Wing
- Thread starter MIflyer
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That was one of the main aspects of the show was to look into that question - what they came up with if i remember it correctly were the tests were inconclusive on the coating - that any stealth properties that had been achieved whether or not they were intentional or not was mainly due to the aircrafts reduced frontal signature
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The conclusion was that the Ho229 had a reduced signature because it was literally a flying horizontal line.
No prop arc, no tailplane structure and the two jet intakes were the largest "bounce" in the RADAR return.
It just happens that it's design (which was one that had been around for nearly 2 decades) would have had a reduced reaction to a fairly new technology (*IF* the aircraft ever saw action) and it would be several years before that was realized and exploited - and by the time that realization came into being, the Ho229 had largely been forgotten.
No prop arc, no tailplane structure and the two jet intakes were the largest "bounce" in the RADAR return.
It just happens that it's design (which was one that had been around for nearly 2 decades) would have had a reduced reaction to a fairly new technology (*IF* the aircraft ever saw action) and it would be several years before that was realized and exploited - and by the time that realization came into being, the Ho229 had largely been forgotten.
Yup. The peculiar thing about Reimar Horten's mention of its stealthy coating in his interview in 1983 was that he mentions nothing about its small profile or size that might make the Ho IX difficult to 'see' by radar, only that production versions only were to be coated with the special glue mixture. No contemporary evidence of such a coating has been found, either within Horten's own papers or factories, or within Gothaer Waggon Fabrik's factories, which were to build it. Further evidence to counter any intent behind Horten's later claims are surviving documents prepared by him that came into Allied possession at the end of the war.
A document dated 1 March 1945 written by Reimar Horten and forwarded to the RLM describes in considerable detail the aircraft. It is titled Horten Flugzeugmuster 8-229 and in one section offers 22 advantages the Horten flying wing fighter offers over existing types. Not once does it mention low observable technology of any sort. Construction materials and methods are described extensively but there is no mention at all of a special type of outer covering.
Both Horten brothers were captured and interrogated in London over three days in May 1945, during which they spoke of their swept wing jet fighter and offered models from their own workshops and on exploring the locations where their aircraft were stored, no evidence of what might be considered stealth technology was encountered by Allied engineers. At the National Archive at Kew there is a record of the interrogation of the Horten brothers. It is interesting to note that Horten offered a transport flying wing, the Horten VIII to the British - it was incomplete by the end of the war, but Horten had constructed major components. The offer was not taken up.
Both Hortens went to Argentina in 1948, with Walter returning to Germany two years later. Reimar worked for FMA, the government owned military aircraft factory, for which he worked on two gliders, one of which, the Urubu I have provided a picture of, a transport and a jet fighter, all of which were flying wings. Of these, only the jet fighter was not built. The jet fighter was canned following Kurt Tank's development of the Pulqui II, which was promised sooner than what Horten could provide. The transport was a four engined pusher flying wing based on the Horten VIII offered to the British, called the IA-38 and nicknamed the 'Naranjero', naranja meaning orange in Spanish. Here's a bit of info and images of this rather bizarre aircraft.
DINFIA IA 38 - Wikipedia
After all this time where such a thing as radar absorbent coatings could and should have been raised, Horten's claims in 1983 seem oddly timed and misplaced. Horten offered his services to the British, who politely declined and to not have mentioned something as advanced to the British, with whom he was seeking employment seems odd, all of which adds to evidence that his claims are a fabrication.
Further to this subject, yes the Germans were developing radar absorbent materials, but as mentioned by Milosh, for submarines. The Germans developed a type of rubber mat coating called the Wesch mat, which was applied to U-boat schnorkels. Apparently the captured U-boat U 3008 that served briefly with the US Navy was fitted with a schnorkel coated with the Wesch mat. There is evidence that it and a coating being developed by petrochemical producer I G Farben was being produced for cladding Type XXI submarines. There is a document within the National Archive at Kew that was produced by British Intelligence from captured reports.
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The Germans also had U-480, which was coated with a synthetic rubber called "Alberich" that greatly reduced ASDIC detection and muffled it's engine sound.
From what I've read, it was never detected by British/Allied ships during it's three combat patrols.
From what I've read, it was never detected by British/Allied ships during it's three combat patrols.
The Horton Ho 229
I saw the show in question--they were clear tht the stealthiness of the design was coincidental--the intakes, for instance, are a major source of radar reflections toward the target--but real. They concluded that, along with it's speed, it would probably reduce the reaction time--the time you had from detection to time-on-target--subtracting the time to scramble the defense--to negative numbers. It would have been a bit like a V-1 that could maneuver, you'd have needed a large number of standing patrols to have a chance of interception before it hit its target.
So, rolling a 7 on your first try at Craps is pure luck--you still don't argue.
The Horton that the allies caputured was not a Ho 229, it was a Ho IX testbed/prototype for the Ho 229. The actual production Ho 229 would have been about 5% bigger with a higher fineness ratio for the wings. The most important thing to note was that the filler material to be used beween the plywood was 'formholz' plastic wood consisting of saw dust, glue and the orginal semiconducting nano material grapphite. The Germans didnt have ecuadorian balsa like the British had to use so this was the subsitute for the heavier birch.
The use of semiconducting material on the Ho 229 would have had radar absorbing properties. Now the Germans were using stealth materials on the mast heads of their u boats. They called their material "chimney sweep" (Schonsteinfehger in German) but it was a "Jaumann absorber". The Jaumann absorber consited of 9 layers of semiconducting graphite impregnated cardboard with an exponentially increasing graphite concentration. It was impregnated with PVC to make it water proof. it was about 1 inch thick and absorbed 96% of 9cm radar and 80% of 3cm radar.
All the Germans had to do was give the 'formholz' in the Ho 229 an exponential characteristic of layering.
After the war Reimar Horton moved to Argentina. There in 1950 he gave a recorded speech about 'radar camouflage' to the Argentinian Aeronautics Association.
The Germans had stealh and used it. They could easily have put the RAM developed for u-boats on the Ho 229. It was perfect. I'm sure they were.
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They didn't however and yes, they used radar absorbent materials in submarines as has been mentioned, but not on the Ho 229. there's no evidence of it, just hearsay and supposition. And it's Horten.
1000KMH no piston engined aircraft would've been able to intercept - true you would'nt be at full power all the time - What is 1000 KMH 650 mph roughly ? Ok so you're at 600 mph - Yes i think the show stated it had 20% less of a radar signature compared to a regular aircraft - that combined with the speed -I saw the show in question--they were clear tht the stealthiness of the design was coincidental--the intakes, for instance, are a major source of radar reflections toward the target--but real. They concluded that, along with it's speed, it would probably reduce the reaction time--the time you had from detection to time-on-target--subtracting the time to scramble the defense--to negative numbers. It would have been a bit like a V-1 that could maneuver, you'd have needed a large number of standing patrols to have a chance of interception before it hit its target.
So, rolling a 7 on your first try at Craps is pure luck--you still don't argue.
I thought as part of Northrup's research they were allowed access to the sole survivor - taking information directly from the prototype including a small sample of the coating on the leading edge of the wings - which is how they got the info to try to replicate it..
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 3,954
- Jun 25, 2013
Anything flying 50 ft above the water is going to be hard to detect with 1940s -- or 1970s -- era radar due to clutter. The Chain Home radars operated at a pretty low frequency, possibly low enough so that the Horten's "stealth" properties were illusory. Stealth is incredibly oversold by many people, including the defense industry and even people in government: it is not some magic invisibility cloak.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The pole that Northrop tested the Ho.IX replica on, was at Tejon, California.
I've seen the radar model in the San Diego Air Museum and it is an obviously simplified version of the actual aircraft, which I saw at Silver Hill, having a symmetrical wing without dihedral or washout and, just to note, there's also no metal in or on the structure unlike the original. As to the original airframe, it can be made to present very nicely in a museum someday but as a flying aircraft the German's were very far from completing it so a lot of new work would need to be done to finish it - not going to happen.
The NASM aircraft doesn't have the glue compound; there was no 'special' coating fitted to that aircraft. Reimar Horten himself stated that only the production variants would be so fitted in his book Nurflugel. Author Dan Sharp did some research into this in a magazine and included passages from Horten's 1983 interview with David Myhra:
"Myhra asked, 'why did you not use metal?' Reimar said 'We had the idea that the wood we needed we would first glue. For the glue when used makes the wing like a tank for fuel. Second, metal must be covered with wood to make it unresponsibve to radar waves. Wood does not reflect the wave of radar [!]. We wanted tomake sure that the aircraft would not be seen by radar. That was the idea."
Sharp concludes by adding the following: "The idea that a wooden aircraft would be invisible to radar appears to disregard the fact that largely wooden aircraft such as the de Havilland Mosquito were certainly visible to German radar during the war."
Sharp also states the following at the end of the section with the following: "Similarly, Reimar makes no mention of the idea that the very shape of the of the H IX might make it less visible to radar - only that its wooden construction would help it. The only possible conclusion must be that if Reimar Horten did have plans to make the H IX a 'stealth fighter', and know how to do it successfully, he strangely kept it all to himself at a time when such an innovation could have given him boundless praise and might have given his flagging country a genuine advantage."
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Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 38,252
- Mar 26, 2007
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