Northrop Flying Wings

INTRODUCTION

Jack Northrop’s flying wings - or to give them their more correct title, all wing aircraft - were some of the most spectacular, graceful and elegant flying machines ever to grace the skies.

A design as aeronautically pure as a flying wing had huge advantages over conventional aircraft design. This advantage was that drag was reduced to an absolute minimum. As a result of this minimum drag, the performance of the flying wing became unequalled in speed, range and operating economy.

For many years aeronautical designers realised that by reducing drag - that is the net aerodynamic force acting opposite to the direction of the movement of the solid object caused by the shape or form of an aircraft as it passes through the air - that machine’s performance could be greatly increased. Early steps taken in this direction brought about the changes from biplane to monoplane design; the elimination of external wing struts and flying wires; the incorporation of retractable undercarriages and the general overall ‘smoothing out’ of the shape. However, in spite of all these advances, the average conventional aircraft of today still has two to four times the drag of a flying wing. So in order to reduce drag to its absolute minimum, a number of aircraft designers took the drastic step of eliminating both the fuselage and tail altogether and placed the pilot, the engines and the payload completely inside the wing envelope.

These aircraft from Northrop, in particular the incredible eight-engined all-jet YB-49, were the purest form of flying machines - no fuselage, no tail - in fact barely any vertical surfaces at all. They seemed almost a fantasy, something from the realms of science fiction - indeed, the first time I recall ever seeing one of ‘the wings’ was, as I am sure many others had the same initiation, in H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds - a 1953 science fiction movie starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on-screen loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name. In a desperate bid to stop the Martian invaders, much emphasis was placed on the use of a United States Air Force YB-49 Flying Wing bomber that was to drop an atomic bomb on three war machines. Unfortunately, the A-Bomb had no effect, due to their protective force fields; the Martians continued their advance and the government ordered an immediate evacuation. The movie showed a YB-49 taking off and then lingers on the aircraft cavorting around the sky prior to making its attack.

For around forty years the history books recorded all of Northrop’s all-wing aircraft as little more than an aberration, almost a failure, something that was an interesting dead-end that was investigated and found to be little more than a byway to mainstream conventional aeronautics that suffered a highly publicised fatal crash and became embroiled in American politics.

Then another design surfaced that equally captured the public imagination. It was from Northrop-Grumman, the successor company to the original designers and builders and it had exactly the same wingspan - this was the B-2 Spirit.

This then, is the story.

Graham M Simons

Peterborough

July 2012

IN THE BEGINNING

Jack Northrop was not the first to have the vision of an all-wing aircraft, just as Robert Stephenson was not the first to have the vision of a steam locomotive. But each in their turn were in the right place at the right time, enabling them to transform a vision into reality.

Jack heard from all the other aircraft designers that an ideal aircraft should have the maximum size body with the mere sliver of a wing - nothing more than a projectile with fins - but he saw things differently. Northrop believed that aircraft should be exactly the opposite - a maximum of wings and a minimum of body.

‘Better, no body at all. To concentrate on the body is gross, unsightly, and inefficient. To focus on the wings is to be on the side of birds in their graceful, seemingly effortless flight; to be on the side of the angels’ he is supposed to have said.

The work of others

Tailless aircraft have been experimented with since the earliest attempts to fly. However, it was not until the deep-chord monoplane wing became practicable after World War One that the opportunity to discard any form of fuselage arose and the true flying wing could be realised.

Hugo Junkers patented a wing-only air transport concept in 1910. He saw it as a natural solution to the problem of building an airliner large enough to carry a reasonable passenger load and enough fuel to cross the Atlantic in regular service. He believed that the flying wing’s potentially large internal volume and low drag made it an obvious design for this role. In 1919 he started work on his ‘Giant’ JG1 design, intended to seat passengers within thick wings, but two years later the Allied Aeronautical Commission of Control ordered the incomplete JG1 destroyed for exceeding post-war size limits on German aircraft. Junkers conceived futuristic flying wings for up to 1,000 passengers; the nearest this came to realisation was in the 1931 Junkers G-38 34-seater Grossflugzeug airliner which featured a large thick-chord wing providing space for fuel, engines and two passenger cabins. However, it still required a short fuselage to house the crew and additional passengers.

John Knudsen ‘Jack’ Northrop (b. November 10, 1895, d. February1981)

Left: Alexander Lippisch created his Storch V by installing a small engine onto the Storch IV with a pusher propeller. First flights were in September 1929, flown by Günther Groenhoff. In October the aircraft was flown at Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin with the hopes of obtaining more research grants from the government. (authors collection)

Below: A stunning picture of the Horten Ho.III motorised glider in flight. (authors collection)

The flying wing configuration was studied extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, by Alexander Lippisch and the Horten brothers in Germany. Soviet designers such as Boris Ivanovich Cheranovsky started research independently and in secret under Stalin after the 1920s. With significant breakthrough in materials and construction methods, aircraft such as the BICh-3, BICh-14, BICh-7A and so on became possible. Men like Chizhevskij and Antonov also came into the spotlight of the communist party by designing aircraft such as the tailless BOK-5 from Chizhevskij and the OKA-33 - the first ever built by Antonov - which were designated as ‘motorized gliders’ due to their similarity to popular gliders of the time. The BICh-11 by Cheranovsky in 1932 was competing with the Horten brothers H1 and also and with Adolf Galland - who was later to become famous as a Luftwaffe pilot during World War Two - at the Ninth Glider Competitions in 1933.

Charles Fauvel (b. 31 December 1904, d. 10 September 1979) is seen here (left) in later years with Eric Nesseler and the prototype Fauvel AV.36. (Simon Peters Collection)

Charles Fauvel was born in Angers, France on 31 December 1904, and at an early age was attracted to flying. He had a distinguished career in French military and civil aviation, during which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Aeronautical Medal, the Grand Silver Medal of the French Aero-Club and the Grand Golden Medal of the French Gliding Association. His career began in 1923, when, on joining the army, he received a military pilot’s bursary. During his military service at Chateauroux, Fauvel became a friend of Pierre Massenet, and in 1928, together with a few others, they formed the famous University Aero Club. In the same year, at the Vauville Gliding Rally, Fauvel had his first thoughts about flying wings as a means of reducing the drag produced by fuselages and tail units, since it was obviously not possible to increase the aspect ratio of the wing indefinitely.

Fauvel decided, after having obtained a patent on his formula for the flying wing, to put into work a prototype incorporating his theories. The designation was AV.2 (‘AV’ for Aile Volante, french for flying wing), the AV.1 having been intended only as the model to study the formula in laboratory studies. A certain amount of mystery surrounds the construction of the AV.2 - some sources state that construction of the AV.2 started around 1932 at the Guerchais factory, but with the unexpected bankruptcy of the Guerchais enterprise and the end of financial support from the main investor, the Makhonine company, the development of the AV.2 stopped and was never finished. However, pictures do exist of the completed aircraft outside the Caudron factory in 1933, so it is likely that the machine was taken over and completed there. Equipped with a self-stabilizing airfoil designed and drawn by Georges Abrial, this aircraft was aimed at amateur pilots of motorized flight as well the glider pilot. The engine, mounted on a pylon on top of the back of the fuselage, could be disassembled from the machine in a few minutes to transform the aircraft into a pure glider.

The Fauvel AV.2 seen outside the Caudron hangar in 1933. (Simon Peters Collection)

Left: A close up of the 40 hp ABC Scorpion engine that powered the Fauvel AV.2. A second two-seat prototype was powered by a 75 hp Pobjoy R engine. (Simon Peters Collection)

The Fauvel AV.3 Falcon glider over the beach and sand dunes at Pyla Archaon. (Simon Peters Collection)

In a parallel effort, Charles Fauvel designed another prototype, a pure glider designated the AV.3. Thanks to the financial support of Air Force friends he was able to construct and test the AV.3, making the first flights in 1933 from the La Banne d’Ordanches airfield. He also allowed a famous glider pilot, Eric Nessler, to fly the glider, who confessed that he was very much impressed by Fauvel’s flying wing formula. The AV.3 was destroyed in 1936 when a winter storm took off the hangar roof in which the machine was being stored, allowing the rain to enter and soak the aircraft and destroy the casein glue.

In England, in the early 1920’s Captain - later Professor - Geoffrey T. R. Hill began a study of aircraft design, with the object of discovering a means of securing safety in flight. Captain Hill’s investigations eventually led him to evolve a tailless form of aircraft in which the wings were arranged roughly in the form of a blunt arrow-head and, with Mrs. Hill’s assistance, he built a prototype as a glider, naming it after that pre-historic reptile the Pterodactyl, in view of its wing-tip control.

Geoffrey Hill took advice and assistance from John W. Dunne FRAeS, the Anglo-Irish aeronautical engineer and author. Dunne had built a series of aircraft going back to 1907, a number of which were tailless and some of which had been used by the US Army.

Dunne’s first swept biplane wing aircraft, designed to have automatic stability, dated from his employment at the Balloon (later) Aircraft Factory at Farnborough during 1906 – 09. To preserve military secrecy testing was done at Blair Atholl in Scotland. On leaving Farnborough, Dunne set up a private company, the Blair-Atholl Syndicate Ltd. Its first aircraft was the Dunne D.5. When this crashed in 1911 it was rebuilt as the D.8. The two models shared very similar wings and the same engine, but the D.8 had a single pusher propeller instead of the chain-driven pair of the D.5. Their fuselages and undercarriages were also different.

A Dunne D-8 swept-wing tailless biplane of around 1916. The type served the US Army. (Simon Peters Collection)

The D.8 was a tailless four bay unstaggered biplane with its wings swept at 32°. Its constant chord wings were built around two spruce spars, the forward one forming the leading edge. To help achieve stability the incidence and interplane gap decreased outboard, the former becoming negative. This washout on tips well behind the centre of gravity provided longitudinal stability in the same way as a conventional tailplane, set at lower incidence than the wings. The camber increased outwards, with simple, near parallel, pairs of interplane struts joining the spars. The outer interplane struts were enclosed with fabric, forming fixed side curtains that provided directional stability. Wing tip elevons were used for control, operated by a pair of levers, one either side of the pilot. The D.8 initially used just a pair of these, mounted on the upper wing, a rectangular cutout in the side curtains allowing for their movement as on the D.5. Large parts of the aircraft were built by Short Brothers.

Successful tests on the South Downs demonstrated to the Air Ministry the practicability of the design, and, in view of its possible military advantages, they co-operated with Captain Hill to fit the machine with a small 34hp Bristol Cherub engine.

The first powered flight of the Pterodactyl took place at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and, after final demonstrations before Sir Samuel Hoare, then Secretary of State for Air, the Westland Aircraft Works took over the development of the type, Captain Hill joining the staff for this purpose.

The Westland-Hill Pterodactyl 1. (Simon Peters Collection)

The first version of the Pterodactyl Mk.V, with manufacturer’s markings ‘P8’ and no fin area on the wingtips.

Below: An exciting air-to-air shot of the Pterodactyl V that gives a clear idea as to the wing planform and the rear gunner’s position. (both authors collection)

The first Westland-Hill production was a side-by-side two-seater, with wings differing in plan-form considerably from those of the original machine. It was designated the Mk. IA when fitted with a 34hp Bristol Cherub engine, but after this engine was replaced by a 70hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet, and small rudders were fitted, it was given the mark number IB.

The penultimate Pterodactyl, the Mk. VII was to be a twin-engined flying boat - it never passed beyond the design stage. (authors collection)

The design was important, since it successfully demonstrated that a wing loading far greater than that of the prototype did not affect the solutions of stability and control evolved by Captain Hill. Originally flown by Flt Lt Louis G. Paget AFC and with Flt Lt F J. Brunton carrying out some of the later work, this Pterodactyl was used for a great number of investigations and, as a result, it was possible to proceed with complete confidence to other designs.

Clearly then, the entire aeronautical world had been investigating the possibility of both tailless and wing-only flight for some considerable period of time.

The start of ‘the Northrop wings’

John Knudsen ‘Jack’ Northrop was born on 10 November 1895 in Newark, New Jersey, but grew up in Santa Barbara, California from 1914, where he developed a deep interest in aeronautics in high school. In 1916 he went to work for the Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company found by the brothers Allan and Malcolm Loughead. Here he was engaged as an engineering draftsman, contributing to the design of their twin-engined F-1 flying boat.

Jack moved to Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, he went from draughtsman to designer to project engineer on several early Douglas machines. The next major move came in 1927, when he returned to Lockheed, there designing the original Vega.

Early on, Northrop met Anthony ‘Tony’ Stadlman, a Czech-born barnstormer and shop foreman, who told him about tail-less, swept-wing aircraft that had been flown in Europe. From about 1919 until 1927 the two men worked together and, in their spare time, they actually built an all-wing glider. Sometime toward the end of this period a rift developed between them, and Stadlman would later claim that a model flying wing he had built and shown to Northrop was the basis for Northrop’s subsequent designs. Their parting was bitter.

Tony Stadlman holding a model of his ‘all-wing’ design. It bears a remarkable likeness to the Northrop design.

During the early stages of design development, Northrop held discussions with Dr. Theodore von Karman of the California Institute of Technology. Northrop left Lockheed (as the Loughhead Brothers company was now called) in 1928, and formed a small company, the Avion Corporation, in the Burbank/Glendale area, to further explore the idea of a tailless craft. Here he produced the Alpha, a single-engine, all-metal, seven-seat, low-wing monoplane fast mail/passenger transport that was regarded as well ahead of its time.

Northrop later hired Karman’s assistant, Dr. William Sears, to become his Chief Aerodynamicist. Walt Cerny, who came to work for Northrop in 1929, was made assistant Chief of Design. These men had direct supervision of the Flying Wing from its inception. The encouragement and assistance of these men, plus the enthusiastic collaboration of the many Northrop employees, enabled this amazing design to become a reality.

When Northrop founded the Avion Corporation he began work on his own ‘Flying Wing’. He brought the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to Avion as President, with himself as vice-president, and Hearst partly financed the development of the aircraft. The machine was not a true ‘flying wing’ in that it had tail-booms supporting conventional ailerons and rudders. However, its construction was very modern for the day, being all metal (duralumin), with the skin providing most of the structural strength of the aircraft. At the time, many aircraft were still being made with frames covered by fabric. Northrop experimented with two different power plants from Menasco Motors of Los Angeles. There seems to be some differing views as to which version was first: one version was fitted with a Menasco A-4 inverted engine driving a tractor propeller. The other carried an inverted Mark III Cirrus engine, in a pusher configuration which proved most useful in the prototype. The engine was completely enclosed within the wing, with cooling air passing through a tunnel in the wing. This significantly reduced aerodynamic drag. Two cockpits were provided, one on either side of the centrally-mounted seven-foot shaft connecting the pusher propeller to the forward-mounted engine, but one was covered over for the test flights. Northrop designed a retractable undercarriage for the aircraft, in co-operation with Menasco Motors, but in the event a conventional fixed undercarriage was used on the prototype.

His Experimental No. 1 looked suspiciously like the one Stadlman was seen holding in an old photograph.

The big problem to be overcome in designing the flying wing revolved around the buried engine concept, for with this, the entire engine propeller shaft had to be buried within the wing foil. This increased the problems of cooling the engine and of turning the long drive shaft to the propellers.

The Norhrop Experimental No.1 in flight in pusher configuration.

The first Northrop semi-flying wing had a wing span of 30 feet 6 inches, a length was 20 feet, and an overall height was five feet. Wing area was 184 square feet and aspect ratio was 5.12 to 1. Landing gear was of the tricycle type with the main wheels forward and a spread of nine feet between the main wheels.

The prototype was tested at Harpers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert, with test pilot Eddie Bellande in the cockpit. The tests were generally very successful. The aircraft’s speed was described as ‘approximately 25% better than any other design of like power and capacity’, and flight characteristics were normal. Of course, this was due to the conventional ailerons and rudders, but the basic design of the ‘flying wing’ had been proven to be sound. Engineering data obtained from these flight tests would be used to develop the first true ‘flying wing’ aircraft a decade later.

Northrop lacked enough money to continue independent operations, however, and the giant holding company, the United Aircraft & Transport Corporation (UATC), which also included Boeing and Stearman Aircraft, absorbed Avion in October 1929. As part of UATC, Northrop operated as the Northrop Corporation, a division of UATC.

The test flights of the Avion Experimental No.1 were completed in September 1930, and the machine disappeared into the mists of obscurity.

The pressure of designing and building conventional aircraft prevented complete concentration on the solution of the Flying Wing design, and it was not until later that they were able to focus their efforts on Northrop’s dream of a true flying wing. In 1932, Northrop formed a new Northrop Corporation at El Segundo, California, in partnership with Douglas Aircraft. As Northrop continued to design and produce airplanes of a conventional nature, he found another opportunity to test his ideas with a wind tunnel model in 1937. He was assisted in his project, designated Model 25, by Edward H.’Ed’ Heinemann, who in his own right would have a profound impact on the design of military aircraft in the United States. Without any significant financial