Hitlers Stealth Fighter

[+MigBuster]

Hadn't seen this - A full mockup of the Horton 229 built and its RCS tested.

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaJzKjtjZnY 

[+pcpilot]

It was fascinating to see that  the Horten was still in storage. It would be awesome to see it refurbished and at least put on display if not actually made flyable again. I never realized how far along the Germans were in actually bringing this aircraft to production. To see that several test flights had already been done and dogfights defeating the Me-262 flown was eye opening. To see Northrops' demonstration of how the aircraft would be used attacks on Britains' radar was sobering. To see the Horten 18 attack the US with nuclear weapons was downright frightening. Gotta say that team at Northrop was pretty cool. Cool video.

Edited November 16, 2013 by pcpilot

[+Gepard]

That the Horten 229 was a stealth design is a myth. And its far away from reality. The intention was to build a "Nurflügler" wingbody design for better flight performance, but not the defeat Radar. That it became more or less stealthy was a byproduct and sometimes resulted by accident. So the carbon, that was used as part of the paint and which was a cause of some of the stealth effect, came only into the paint because other materials were not available and carbon had no heavy weight.

[+SayethWhaaaa]

Yeah, it's low observability was purely accidental, never intentional. It's more a conspiracy theory thing being bandied around by the faux-History Channel over the last few years. They tend to take a bit of artistic license with actual history now, at the History Channel, rather than present factual doccos like they used to.

[SFP1Ace]

Still, it's a helluva sexy beast. I think one could fly it in MS CFS3, iirc.

[+pcpilot]

SFP1Ace, Its in IL2. ;0)

 

I agree its RCS was probably an accident. Never the less, it was still am impressive machine. That it also would have made it more difficult to detect adds to the machine's effectiveness.

Edited November 16, 2013 by pcpilot

[SFP1Ace]

SFP1Ace, Its in IL2. ;0)

 

 

Ah, yes. I guess I must have missed it among HUNDREDS of ac available O_O. But CFS3 was first! XD (I think it had it from the beginning in 2002).

[+JediMaster]

I thought it wasn't until Northrop's bomber was test flying that the lower RCS was first noticed. I don't think the Germans had the luxury of watching test flights on radar, they were too busy watching for Allied raids.