Horten.

This is coolbert:

"It can fly master - - it can fly!!"

"‘1,000, 1,000, 1,000’ requirements – one that could carry 1,000kg over 1,000km flying at 1,000km/h." - - H. Goering.

"Hitler's stealth bomber: How the Nazis were first to design a plane to beat radar"

"With its smooth and elegant lines, this could be a prototype for some future successor to the stealth bomber. But this flying wing was actually designed by the Nazis 30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar-invisible technology. Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 2-29 from blueprints, with startling results."



Many decades after the end of the war [Second World War] - - "Northrop-Grumman (the defence firm behind the B-2) [has] built a full size replica of a Horten Ho 2-29."

A German secret weapon of World War Two [WW2]! A full size [but non-flying] replica has been built.

The flying-wing concept that ONLY has recently come into fruition with the advent of multiple computers that are ABSOLUTELY needed to control the inherently unstable flying-wing design.

The German designed this plane NOT ONLY with aerodynamic efficiency in mind, but also incorporating "radar-beating" technology into the mix as well. The term "stealth" as moderns understand it would not have been used at the time.

"The most important innovation was Reimar Horten’s idea to coat it in a mix of charcoal dust and wood glue."

The center-pod of the Horten was made of metals, as was of course the jet engines. The remainder of the plane WAS MADE OF WOOD, and coated with the non-radar-reflective substance consisting of the charcoal dust and wood glue?

Comments:

* Modern flying-wings must have a host of computers on-board to monitor and adjust for the inherent instability of flying-wing design type aircraft. Such designs are inherently unstable and beyond the ability of a human pilot to control. The Horten was not actually piloted [this replica cannot fly either] and only was towed aloft behind a glider during trial flights!

* Modern stealth aircraft rely upon a combination of materials, non-radar-reflecting and computer designed airfoil and fuselage surfaces that are shaped in a manner to diffuse radar waves so that return echoes are minimized.

* NO stealth aircraft is totally invisible to radar. BUT are MUCH LESS VISIBLE, shortening the reaction time by which air defense ground and air units have to respond to threats.

This replica is an American enterprise? Normally the British are very good at this stuff. Recreating old designs and determining feasibility of ancient concepts. The Greek trireme or Mr. Babbage's computational machine, for instance.

coolbert.