Is B-2 stealth bomber a copy of German Ho 229?

Is the B-2 stealth bomber a copy of German Ho 229?

The year is 1945, and Allied forces in WWII come across a hidden German hangar in the woods, and what they discover would spark controversies that continue to this day. The Luftwaffe, the German aerial warfare branch, was secretly developing an aircraft that they believed could help them win the war, led by none other than Hermann Göring. What they find is one of the so-called German Secret Weapons, the Horten HO-229 V3 prototype, an other-worldly looking jet-powered flying wing aircraft. The HO-229 housed two jet engines, integrated into a sleek flying wing design, and resembled nothing else of the era. In the late stages of WWII, the Americans initiated Operation Paperclip, an effort to capture advanced German weapons research, and keep it from falling into the hands of the advancing Soviet forces. Through operation SeaHorse, the HO-229 was shipped back to the US in 1945, and the Allies removed yet another chess piece from the board of Germany’s high-tech military arsenal. But the story doesn’t end there. In fact it raises some fascinating questions: 1:-Was the HO-229’s sleek design purpose-built to evade radar? 2:-Was the Northrop Grumman B-2 Stealth Bomber influenced or even copied from the HO-229? 3:-And what if Germany had achieved production of the HO-229? Could it have turned the tide, and changed the outcome of the war? IS IT STEALTH? In his later life, Reimar Horten promoted the idea that the Horten Ho 229 V3 was intended to be built as a stealth aircraft, which would have placed this jet’s design several decades ahead of its time. Reimar Horten claimed that he wanted to add charcoal to the adhesive layers of the plywood skin of the production model to render it invisible to radar, because the charcoal “should diffuse radar beams, and make the aircraft invisible on radar” (Horten and Selinger 1983). This statement was published in his 1983 co-authored book Nurflugel (which translates as “only the wing”). While this statement refers to the never-made production model, it seems possible that the experimental charcoal addition could have been used on the Horten Ho 229 V3 prototype. The mere mention of early stealth technology sparked the imagination of aircraft enthusiasts across the world and spurred vibrant debate within the aviation community. The stealth myth has been growing since the 1980s and was invigorated when the National Geographic Channel, in collaboration with Northrup Grumman, produced a documentary called "Hitler's Stealth Fighter" in 2009. The program featured the Horten Ho 229 V3 as a potential "Wonder Weapon" that arrived too late in the war to be used (Myth Merchant Films, 2009). The documentary also referred to the jet's storage location as "a secret government warehouse," which added to the mystique of this artifact. Since the airing of the documentary, public pressure has increased to remove the jet from its so-called secret government warehouse and put it on display. In fact, this secret warehouse is the Museum's Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland where a team of conservators, material scientists, a curator, and aircraft mechanic has been evaluating the aircraft. Searching for Charcoal: In 1983, Reimar Horten wrote in Nurflügel that he had planned to combine a mixture of sawdust, charcoal, and glue between the layers of wood that formed large areas of the exterior surface of the Ho 229 V3 production model. This was done to shield, he said, the "whole airplane" from radar as "the charcoal should absorb the electrical waves. Under this shield, then also the tubular steel [airframe] and the engines [would be] invisible [to radar]" (Horten and Selinger 1983, Russ Lee translation). While this statement refers to the never-made production model, it seems possible that the experimental charcoal addition could have been used on the Horten Ho 229 V3 prototype. Stealth Expert Evaluation in 2008 In September 2008, a team of specialists from the Northrop Grumman Corporation analyzed the radar signature of the Horten 229 V3. Before Northrop bought Grumman in 1994, the company built 21 B-2 Spirit 'stealth' bombers for the U. S. Air Force. Northrop Grumman is recognized today for its expertise in technologies that make aircraft difficult to detect by radar or other means. Thomas Dobrenz, the director of Precision Engagement Technologies at Northrop, and Aldo Spadoni, the manager of Engineering Visualization also at Northrop, led a team that used sophisticated portable electronic equipment to measure how much radar energy the Horten jet reflected. .They presented their findings two years later at the 10th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference held September 13 through 15 in 2010, in Fort Worth, Texas. In a technical paper titled "Aviation Archeology of the Horten 229 v3 Aircraft" (AIAA 2010-9214), they summarized the goals and techniques used in their analysis: "Modern RCS [radar cross-section, a measure of the detectability of an object with radar] tools were utilized to examine the one known Horten 229 V3 located at the Smithsonian facility in Washington, DC. A full-scale RCS model [of the Horten jet] was fabricated with modern techniques to simulate the aircraft as it would appear to electromagnetic energy. The original aircraft structure was constructed of a steel tube truss design covered by wood skins. The RCS model was constructed of wood to replicate the original design and complex parts were fabricated by modern techniques such as stereo-lithography. Northrop Grumman tested the full-scale replica at its outdoor RCS test facility in California at electromagnetic frequencies equivalent to the allied radar systems of World War II. Imaging techniques were utilized to understand the main RCS scattering sources of the Horten 229 V3." Dobrenz and Spadoni use the term 'absorber' to refer to the ability of the Ho 229 leading edge to absorb the radar signal rather than reflecting it back to the antenna receiver. More absorption means less reflected signal and greater stealth. The authors assumed in their paper that crafts persons used the "carbon black material" to lower the RCS, however, our technical study findings described above found no evidence of carbon black or charcoal in the Horten jet. NOW come up with previous all myth , a significantly coarsely built replica of a captured and dissembled Ho 229 was later tested by the US military who found the basic shape and paint composition of the mock copy would provide for 20% reduction in detection range against the Chain home radar of 1940's. This study later became the foot step of most modern B-2 stealth bomber project. #Gm