In 1945, near the end of World War II, a special technical team under the command of General Patton of the U.S. Third Army received a secret mission, codenamed "Paperclip". Their goal was to collect and preserve samples of Nazi Germany's advanced technology and equipment, documents, and personnel. The implementation of this task will provide the United States with an important strategic advantage.
During the search and investigation operation, the U.S. military discovered a secret flying wing bomber called HO229V2. The prototype has not yet had time for its first flight, but its sci-fi appearance is stunning. While the U.S. had a similar research program, the Germans were much faster because they combined the beautiful shape of the flying wing with a powerful jet engine to create a new type of equipment with great potential.
The initiators of the HO229 project were two self-taught German aircraft designers, brothers Remar Horton and Walter Horton. They have been part of the gliding club since they were teenagers and have developed a keen interest in the concept of flying wings. In the 30s of the 20th century, they successively developed a series of unpowered flying wing gliders, such as HOI II III IV and so on. And after the outbreak of the war, the two brothers joined the Luftwaffe, and at the request of the Luftwaffe, in 1942 they built the Hovii, a wing-wing glider equipped with propeller power.
As Luftwaffe Field Marshal Goering issued the "three 1000" requirements for the new bomber, that is, 1,000 kg of bombs, 1,000 kilometers per hour, and a combat radius of 1,000 kilometers. To meet this requirement, the Horton brothers proposed a jet-engined version of the flying wing scheme. Göring was very pleased with the plan and agreed to allocate 500,000 Reichsmarks for research and development. In 1944, the first HO229 unpowered gliding prototype, the V1, made a test flight. Then, on February 2, 1945, a second prototype, the Ho229V2, made its first jet-powered test flight, followed by several flight tests.
However, during the third test flight on February 18, 1945, the HO229 lost one of its engines at an altitude of 800 meters, malfunctioned and **, the test pilot tried several times to pull up the plane and try to restart the engine, but in the end it was unsuccessful, and the plane eventually crashed, and the test pilot lost his life as a result. Although the development process of HO229 was abruptly halted by this accident, it still left a deep imprint on the history of world aviation as a revolutionary aircraft design.
The HO229 is a single-seat fighter-bomber with a length of 74 meters, the wingspan reached 168 meters, the height of the machine is 281 meters with a wing area of 528 sq.m. It has a aspect ratio of 78. The empty weight is 4844 kg, and the maximum take-off weight can reach 6876 kg. The HO229 is powered by two Junkers Jumo004B turbojet engines, which can reach a maximum speed of 960 km/h, a range of 1,900 km, and a climb rate of 22 m/s. In terms of wing load, the HO229 has a wing load of 130 kg m² and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0382。
Surprisingly, when the HO229 prototype was being built, Germany was faced with a lack of supplies. Due to a shortage of metal materials, many parts of the HO229 are made of wooden glulam panels, a structure that can face some challenges when flying at supersonic speeds. Later, when American technicians examined the HO229V3, it was discovered that it was not equipped with a built-in bomb bay, which the Germans could use as a fighter-bomber. And when they dismantled the bottom structure, they found obvious traces of high-temperature burns on the wooden parts, which suggests that the Germans may have carried out engine tests. In addition, it is rumored that the radar stealth performance of the HO229 is also an advanced design of the Germans, which in fact is not the case, the Germans did not take stealth performance into account when designing, and the "windfall" of this shape only happened by chance.
To this day, the post-war German prototype of the HO229V3 is preserved in the Hazy Center Museum in Virginia, and has become a witness to people's retrospective history.
The success of the HO229 inspired the Holden brothers to move on to more ambitious wing designs. They proposed an intercontinental strategic bomber scheme called HOXVIII, which also adopted a tailless flying wing layout. The bomber was planned to be fitted with 6 jet engines that could bomb the United States across the ocean. However, due to the fall of Nazi Germany, the project was not able to begin actual development.
In addition to the Hoxviii project of the Horton brothers, Nazi Germany had another project called Arado EThe "American bomber" scheme of 555. Arado EThe 555 also adopted a flying wing layout, in which the eIn the 555-i scheme, 6 jet engines were also installed. However, the program did not enter the actual development stage.
The peculiar shape of HO229 has sparked a lot of speculation that has lasted for decades and has become one of the best fodder for filmmakers to create a sense of technological mystique. In the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, the character of Harrison Ford fights a Nazi winged aircraft based on the HO229.
In conclusion, Nazi Germany's HO229 flying wing bomber was an innovative flying machine design at the end of World War II. Although the project was not completely successful in the chaos of the war, its emergence had an important impact on the development of aeronautical engineering and technology.