The History Of The Flying Wing And U.S. Bomber Aircraft. Jack Northrop's Dream

Video from the channel DroneScapes about Northrop, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:09:38. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary on Jack Northrop's career and his commitment to the flying wing. It follows his prototypes, the bomber program that grew out of them and his rivalry with the Convair B-36. It ends with the B-2, which revived the concept decades later. At the end it adds an archival biographical film with interviews with Northrop himself.

Northrop started at Lockheed in 1919 and worked at Douglas before founding his own companies. He introduced the all-metal monocoque fuselage, debuted on the 1930 Northrop Alpha, first used for passengers and later for mail. He also influenced the design of the Lockheed Vega, the aircraft flown by Wiley Post and Amelia Earhart. In 1929 he tested a first powered flying wing, which still had tail booms and a conventional tail. In 1939 he founded Northrop Aircraft. In 1940 the N1M flew at Muroc; it is preserved today by the Smithsonian. In 1941 Hap Arnold took interest in the design, and the Army Air Corps requested a bomber able to carry 10,000 pounds of bombs on a 10,000-mile trip. That requirement led to the B-35. The one-third-scale N9M flew in December 1942 with hydraulically boosted controls, elevons and split drag rudders at the wingtips. The N9MB still flies today out of Chino.

The B-35 flew in June 1946, with a 172-foot wingspan and nine crew members. Fitted with eight turbojets, it was renamed YB-49. Robert Cardenas flew it from Edwards to Andrews to show it to Truman. On 5 June 1948 a YB-49 crashed, killing all five crew members, including Glenn Edwards, after whom the base was named. After the program's cancellation, the airframes were scrapped and Northrop withdrew. Its rival, the B-36, with a 230-foot wingspan and built in Fort Worth, flew with six 3,500 hp engines, later supplemented with J47 jet engines. It exceeded 400 mph, could carry up to 84,000 pounds, and served from 1949 to 1959, when it was replaced by the B-52. In the spring of 1980 Northrop was able to see mock-ups of the B-2. The B-2, also with a 172-foot wingspan and fly-by-wire controls, was unveiled in Palmdale on 22 November 1988. It made its combat debut in Kosovo on 24 March 1999, flying missions of about 31 hours from Whiteman and dropping 2,000-pound JDAM bombs. There it completed 49 missions in 78 days. Of the 132 aircraft originally planned, only 21 were bought. The closing film reviews other Northrop milestones, such as his time at Douglas in 1923, the World Cruiser fuel tanks, the Gamma, the N-3PB for Norway, the F-89 and his idea for a passenger flying wing.