Easier to build ME 262 or HO 229?

True- but the Me262 development process had one major advantage over the 229...a prop version that at least flew and demonstrated the airworthiness of the airframe under power.

 

Ignoring the problems with a flying wing design itself, which really needs both computer interfacing and fly-by-wire to function, one other thing that seems to be ignored here is that German industry never perfected a decent glue for their wood/composite aircraft.

That was the downfall of their own version of the British DH Mosquito, the technology and engineering lacked the ability to duplicate the system for a "wooden wonder". Their version consistently fell apart when moved from prototype to production, a flaw never solved.

So let's see here, an engine with a limited set of hours of powered flight, a problem never solved with a flying wing's stability, and no way to put them together without the dang thing falling apart. Not a war winning concept.

 

Clint, the delamination issue was mentioned a couple of times...but it's so axiomatic of the German late war aviation industry that it didn't really need much more comment LOL

It's not impossible that if it proved to be such a potentially good design indeed - then it might have attracted the required resources I.E. aluminium, dural etc...eventually - but at war's end it was still just a prototype The point about the Volksjaeger was that it intended to use non-strategic resources - well, apart from the engines

As for glues available to German industry...they had a good one - Tego film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - but the RAF put a stop to THAT nonsense! Hence the vast majority of delamination problems began in...Februay 1943!

 

But none the less, the problems remain. Construction of wooden planes, engine reliability, and flying-wing- instability.

 

The delamination issue affected quite a few otherwise potentially good German designs - the Uhu, the aforementioned He 162, the Me 410...

But there's one aspect of the 229 that I'd love to know if Northrop did any work on in the last few years, apart from all the stuff on low radar signature and returns - the flying wing instability and any extra/unexpected stresses on a laminated wooden wing it caused Let alone on a badly laminated wooden wing...

 

You might enjoy perusing this site, who was doing what and when.

Goto:

Nurflugel

 

Oooo been ages since I saw that one!

But I meant Northrop-Grumman and their work on the Smithsonian Ho 229 since the 1980s rather than Jack Northrop's original - and had they done any computer modelling on the actual airframe of the 229 and its performance, rather than its stealth capacities

The V2 prototype only flew three times before crashing, and the V3 was captured undergoing final assembly....it's not for instance be beyond the bounds of possibility that when the larger V3 was eventually tested at full war power etc...those wooden wings might have peeled apart

 

The one 229 was examined, and rejected as any basis of development for "stealth" as purpose design, the existing Northrop wings were the structural match for radar signature, and the rubber compound used to keep the dang thing from falling apart wasn't designed as a "radar" defeating measure.

The Northrup teams looked at the 229, what was left of it and not "copied". A sort of "not this", i.e., here is what not to do. And the Northrup team actually copied the original Jack Northrup design for their new bomber, with new radar absorbing material which has no connection to the old Horten/Gotha concept. That was a dead end design for the time-period.

You will notice that no piloted fighter copies the HO/229, only the "in prototype" non-piloted aircraft even look anything like either the Horten or the orginal Northrup designs.

 

Just a note, I'm sure most of you are aware that the original 229 wing was designed to eliminate uneccesary drag...and not for stealth purposes.