Horten Ho-IX / Gotha Go 229

If this was released in numbers then the world would have been differant indeed as the worlds population would have fed those ovens till the Master Race were the only ones left.
The jewish population were the lab rats to perfect the killing technology & i'd imangine even their axis allies would have been spared for last.So with that in mind there is mankinds idea of the perfect world!
Combine Von Braum's projects with these Horten flying wings & bye bye world civilizations.

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Apparently, it was designed to be stealthy, the skin was made up of two layers of plywood, with carbon in between to adsorb radar waves.

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I was at a yard-sale in Oakhurst California looking around and this Lady let me look at a photo album that her husband kept in World War II. Over 20 of the black and white pictures taken in 1945 show a very attractive blonde dressed in either Army fatigues or a mechanics outfit posing with dozens of Sherman tank crewmem. In some pictures she is pouring coffee and in others just smiling and posing with the soldiers. I asked her if her husband ever mentioned who she was?? Her reply was it was some German Fraulein named Anna. She said that she was having all the American soldiers donate their candy bars for the children in the nearby villages and towns. She was always busy trying to bring food and clothing to the German families. One of the pictures shows Patton smiling shaking her hand! Could this be Anna Kreisling??
Whoever it was left quite an impression on the American troops!

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Where can you get a set of Ho229 plans ---It would be great to build a full scale and if it would fly

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I had only finished watching a doco on the ME 262 and then im blown away by this work of art HO 229. I sit and shudder thinking we were all less than 18months from speaking german if this thing had been let loose in numbers, Hitler was just to in to much of a hurry with Moscow.

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I have just finished building a huge 1 /18th scale diorama of Anna Kreisling, THE WHITE WOLF OF THE LUFTWAFFE,standing by the side of a Horten jet she was testing in 1945 and being captured by three Sherman tanks from General Patton's army in 1945! Everything is in 1 /18th scale!! By the way I talked with Sargent Bill Cokely who was with these Shermans that captured Anna Kreisling and he said that they weren't about to turn her over!! She was so beautiful!! She poured coffee for six months for the U.S. ARMY and the brass never knew anything!!Bill said that in the winter of 1945 everyone in Patton's army built a Sauna for her! There is a famous picture of her in STARS AND STRIPES pouring coffee for General Patton!

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Absolutely beautiful jet. I was under the impression that stealth technology was based on deflection and absorption of radar waves. This aircraft appears to have neither. Regardless, this plane would have slowed down the allied war effort if it had been mass produced. Fortunately, the US still had the atomic bomb in 1945 when the Germans did not. The outcome of the war would not have changed but it we would have lost a lot more lives to this aircraft.

Interestingly, the this plane look similar to the UFO that Kenneth Arnold so famously sighted in 1947. It makes me wonder if the Americans reversed engineered the Horton immediately after the war. It would have been a secret project if they had, right? Five airframes were destroyed by the Allies at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik factory in April 1945 so that the Russians wouldn't get it.

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In looking at the history of the B2 and the preceding flying wings of Jack Northrop an the Horten brothers, it is clear that much more of the aerodynamic principles discovered by the Hortens were used than that of Mr. Northrop.
The width an basic idea of an all wing fits Jacks ideals but when on looks at the center section of Northrops wings from the 30-50's, none have the extended center section that the Hortens used in the HO IX and other designs of theirs.
The Horten brothers found increased directional stability and lift with what they called the "middle effect" caused by the drastic increase of the chord of the center section, instead of leaving it as a reverse V like their early designs and those of Northrops.
Remember, the original design of the B2 Spirit had a long single V extension to the rear of the cnter section that was later broken up into multiple facets for less overall length and added stealth. By doing so, the B2 actually improves the "middle effect" stability increase by spreading it along the wing span.
One year at the Oshkosh Air Show, I attended a forum where the chief designer and chief test pilot of the B2 program spoke. They took some questions at the end. Someone asked if they used the Northrop XB35 /YB49 as a starting point and that was denied. I asked if they and the Horten info, that too was denied.

I find that hard to believe as they went far afield of "normal" and at great expense. If they did not use the existing knowledge, at least in learning about the subject, they arent as wise as one would think and certainly shortsighted in some regards.

The original design of the B2 SCREAMS Horten HO IX in large scale with modern electronics and flight controls.

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personaly, the horton HO 229 is my personal faverote WW2 German jet.

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If they built this aircraft in large numbers we'd all be speaking german.

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Northrup Grunman recently built a full size model of the 229 and they found out that it was indeed a stealth fighter that would only have given the English military only about a 2:00 minute warning that the fighter was in the air and heading their way. If this fighter was mass produced during WWII it may have changed the outcome, especially if the Amerika Bomber was built.

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Wow,

What a spectacular plane, although I suppose it had some flaws too. For example, apparently one prototype lost an engine causing a loss of control and crash. The DC-3 & various derivatives on the other hand, had a reputation to be able to fly & land quite well with a single engine.

Was it designed to be a stealth plane?

I suppose in an era when Gliders were being used for troop transports, stealth was an issue. Yet, perhaps we're reading too much into the much later striking resemblance to the B-2 Stealth Bomber. As mentioned, there were other "flying wing" planes at the time, and this bears less resemblance to the F-117 stealth fighter. Much of the design also indicates simple elegance, and low drag.

Wood?

It is cheap, durable, good strength to weight ratio. If the plane had been successful, they could have made millions of them.

This certainly wasn't the only wooden plane of the era. Look at the Spruce Goose, for example.

Perhaps there is more to that comparison. A small "rogue" designer /manufacturer. Untested, unique plane design. Aluminum in tight supply. Perhaps Hitler would only allow the Horton Brothers to use wood for the construction, or at least for the prototypes. Or... maybe the Hortons could
only afford to buy wood.

Of course Messerschmidt was allowed to build their planes with aluminum.

Anyway, I hope the original gets restored. Or even reassembled and displayed as-is if it is deemed that restoration would destroy or replace too much of the original plane. And, while it would be wonderful to see it fly, the engines probably wouldn't support a safe flight.

Then the question is... should it be returned to Germany? It is their plane
afterall.

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If you find this cool you should see the "Amerika Bomber",cant find much information on the net, but the plane was a bigger version of the Gotha Go 229, with 6 jetengines. It was designed to drop a nuclear bomb on New york. Luckely enogh the allies stopped it.

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The Germans or Nazis, whatever your outlook, produced another world-beating design, fortunately for us, it didn't like so many, really have time to get off the ground as it were. Truly outstanding and we can see where all the major proponents of 'flying wings', Germany the USA and De Havilland in the UK, produced '163 Comet' lookalikes, though with its jets this made the grade better. would be nice to have seen film of it flying, but the only real pics I've seen is where American scientists /engineers have it in a hangar. hopefully one day, someone will find 'lost film' of it.

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Francis Bacon first espoused the "scientific method". Don't trust what you read. V stands for "versuchsmachine" (prototype) Versuchs noch mal. Me (or Bf)-109's were produced in variants A through K. And maybe the Ho-229 was more like the Avenger II. It never flew either. Enjoyed the read, Tom.

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A Truly revolutionary aircraft about which there is a ton of incorrect information on the web.

The B2 has very little in common with the Ho 229. For one thing it is over three times larger. The B2 is more closely related to the Ho 18, which was a proposed all-wing bomber that was to carry Germany's atomic bomb to New York City. The Ho 18 was still in the design phase when the war ended. Nothing was ever built.

What truly delayed aircraft like this from entering mass production before the end of the war was jet engine technology. The Me 262 could adapt to constantly changing engine sizes because the engines hung under the wing in nacels. If engine specs changed they could just build different cowlings. The Ho 229 placed the engines inside the center section of the aircraft. If the specifications, particularly the diameter, changed the entire airframe had to be redesigned. The Ho 229 was designed with the use of two BMW 002 (also called the 3302) engines in mind, but BMW dropped this engine in favor of the 003. The Ho 229 V1 was converted to a glider because redesigning it for the 003 engines, which still weren't ready anyway, would have meant missing a deadline set by Goering for the first flight of the aircraft. The V1 flew well, albeit without power. The V2 was designed to house the 003, which changed twice during development and required redesigns to the airframe each time, and then still wasn't ready so a pair of Junkers Jumo 004B engines were used, requiring yet another redesign. The V3 was built with a pair of 004Bs from the onset, but the V3 was not complete at war's end. In fact former Horten workers were hired by U.S. General McDonald to complete the aircraft after the war was over so that it could be studied and flown. The flying never happened. It was given to the British initially, who wanted to replace the 004Bs with a pair of Rolls Royce Nenes, but determined that it would be too difficult and the results not worth the effort. The British returned the V3 to the US where it has languished ever since.

Never, ever, ever refer to this aircraft as a Go 229, or even worse a Gotha Go 229. This is totally incorrect and insults the true designers of the aircraft who were the ones who received the approval and funding of Goering to build the Ho 229. This confusion stems from the fact that Gothaer Wagonfabrik AG was tasked with building the aircraft as it entered series production. Essentially Gotha was building the aircraft under license, as the Horten brothers did not have the facilities to mass produce the aircraft; in point of fact both were active service Luftwaffe at the time, and for the duration of the war. The official designation handed down by the RLM is the Horten Ho 8-229. Ho designates the manufacturer, in this case Horten (Me for Messerschmitt, He for Heinkel, etc.). 8 designates a powered aircraft (gliders were designated 108). 229 is a series number assigned by the RLM, who gave various manufacturers a series of numbers to use for their models, which is why you will note that aircraft from the same manufacturer often have number designations that are close together, even if the aircraft differ greatly. The RLM would on occasion reassign numbers to other manufacturers if the original manufacturer wasn't using the number. The V and number after the aircraft states that it is experimental and the number of the prototype. V is for Versuch, which is German for experimental. Production aircraft would not have used the V designation; they would have used another letter as seen with the Me 109 which flew in A through G variants.

There is some great information available on this aircraft, but I caution anyone from trusting the info that is disseminated on the web. If you really want to be in the know read the books by David Myhra, who is probably the best living authority on the Ho 229 and the Horten brothers. He has written their biography "The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft" for which he interviewed both Walter and Reimar, as well as several other books on the Ho 229 specifically.

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Spitzenklasse flugzeugmaschinenbau fur fliegen nach Russland.Auf Wiedersehen, ESB

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Very good aircraft

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we are indeed very lucky,this aircraft along with the 262 & 163 would have completely altered the outcome of the war, if they had gotten into any kind of production-But owing to Hitlers absolute stupidity - in all areas of the military - We have the present outcome.

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I like that wing aircraft. I think the Germans would of started making that aircraft later to start another war. I think i like to make a version of this aircraft. I think it would be neat to fly around the city or the country to get some TV airtime. It looks easy to build.

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