Northrop's Masterpiece: The Forgotten Flying Wings That Defied the Laws of Aviation

Video from the channel DroneScapes about Northrop, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:09:53. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A compilation documentary on Jack Northrop's flying wings, from the earliest tailless trials to their legacy in the B-2 stealth bomber. It combines interviews with curators, engineers and B-2 pilots with archival footage. Its central section includes a period promotional film produced by Northrop itself about the YB-49. That film presents the design's efficiency, structure, maintenance and handling of an aircraft weighing about 100 tons, with eight jet engines and over 500 mph.

Northrop started at Lockheed in 1919 and later passed through Douglas and Boeing. He designed the Alpha, of monocoque construction, and the A-17. In 1929 he tested a tailed flying wing, and in 1939 he founded Northrop Aircraft. The N-1M flew in 1940 at Muroc, made about 200 flights and is today preserved at the Smithsonian. On 22 November 1941, Hap Arnold signed the contract for a bomber able to carry 10,000 pounds of bombs over 10,000 miles. To study the concept, the one-third-scale N-9M aircraft were built, flying in December 1942; the N-9MB still flies at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino. The XB-35 flew in June 1946. It had a 172-foot wingspan, four engines with contra-rotating propellers and nine crew members, and suffered from yaw and gearbox problems. Its jet-powered version, the YB-49, made a record flight to Andrews with Robert Cardenas at the controls, where President Truman saw it. On 5 June 1948, a YB-49 crashed during stall testing, killing all five crew members, including Glen Edwards. Muroc was renamed Edwards AFB in his memory. The program was cancelled, the aircraft were scrapped and Northrop withdrew. The contract went to the Convair B-36, with a 230-foot wingspan and 84,000 pounds of payload, in service from 1949 to 1959.

In 1980, Northrop was able to see mock-ups of the B-2, which had the same 172-foot wingspan as his flying wings. The B-2 was unveiled on 22 November 1988 in Palmdale. In Kosovo, in 1999, B-2s flew 49 sorties of about 30 hours from Whiteman with JDAM bombs. The fleet ended up at 21 aircraft out of the 132 originally planned.