Professional Pilot, May 2018
OUTER MARKER INBOUND Jack Northrop and the fl ying wing I nnovation has given us nearly everything the human mind can imagine and aviation was fertile ground for early men with vision and determination There were so many innovators like William Boeing Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers who made their mark and then moved out of the spotlight so early in their careers that original examples of their extraordinary work faded But remarkably one pioneers breakthroughs remain as fresh in design and concept today as what he imagined in the 1930s his name was Jack Northrop Northrop envisioned a fl ying wing free of bulky empennage and tail which would be signifi cantly more aerodynamically effi cient In those days without fl y bywire or rudimentary stability augmentation he had to go through numerous designs and models the most famous being the YB 49 Originally outfi tted with 6 massive radial reciprocating engines the end product designed for 84 PROFESSIONAL PILOT May 2018 the Air Force was fi tted with 8 Turbodyne turbojets Flight controls called elevons a combination of elevators and ailerons were developed to control all 3 axes of fl ight especially yaw Surprisingly the wing design was proven to be very stealthy the term then used by the Air Force was low observability Pre planned test fl ights over Half Moon Bay in California were undetectable by radar until directly overhead Despite not having any sophisticated autopilots the wing designs fl ew in a benign manner and were deemed suitable for Air Force crews The YB 49 was intended to compete with the Consolidated B 36 Peacemaker Stuart Symington secretary of the Air Force at the time suggested to Northrop that Consolidated and Northrop merge But Northrop had no desire to give up control and asked Symington what the consequences would be if there was no merger Syming By David Bjellos ATP Helo Gulfstream IV Sikorsky S76 Bell 407 Pro Pilot Senior Contributor Images courtesy Creative Commons The YB 35 above became the YB 49 below with some structural modifi cations and turbojet powerplants The biggest challenge in those early days was fi nding powerplants with suffi cient thrust and reliability The YB 49 performed far better than the YB 35 but was still underpowered and short on necessary range Jack Northrop at the drafting table Northrops vision to perfect an aircraft produced the fl ying wing He assembled the best aeronautical minds at the time to join him in the engineering section and their work has had far reaching effects
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