HO 229

Fred- Here is a book on the Horton flying wings. That looks like one of the hangars at the NMUSAF.

The Horten Flying Wing in World War II: The History & Development of the Ho 229 (Schiffer Military History) by Dabrowski, H. P.: Schiffer Publishing 9780887403576 1st. - Better World Books

 

I haven't read the Horton book but I know a little bit about flying wings....or Tail-less aircraft . There were many successful tailless aircraft before the Horton. The Burgess airplane in WW1 was a flyable example and there were others. I fail to see what Horton did that was so much different or better than others. A tail-less aircraft must make up for the loss of the tail by twisting the wing to produce a pitching-up moment at the tip to counteract the nose down pitching moment of the wing airfoil section. It has been done many times. The negative problem as a result is a constant oscillation from stabile to unstable to stabile. Thus, without a computer controlled stability system, a bad condition for a bombing platform or gunfire. Did Horton get this figured out without a computer system on board? I offer my rather uneducated look at the Horton phenomenon .

 

I suspect it's greatest advantage was low drag, big thrust.

blueprints here: https://www.google.com/search?q=ho229&rlz=1CATAAB_enUS617US617&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio8a2o0d_KAhWC6SYKHddNCU0Q_AUIBygB&biw=1097&bih=579#tbm=isch&q=horten+ho+229+blueprints

I've flown a number of tailess RC planes. Setting one up for FPV now. Fast or slow they're awesome.
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Bob- The big deal on the Ho 229 was that it was the first jet powered flying wing and was a bit advanced compared to our first jet bomber, the B-45. The XB-49 was considerably later.

 

i read you, Taz. More power and speed does make a difference but the principles of stability seem to be the same , to me. I'm going to talk to my aeroguru tomorrow to see where I might be drifting. It's happened before...many times.

 

I think that is at the Air and Space Museum in VA Terry. It was there a year and a half ago or so when I was there. Kind of sitting in a heap of parts as it is now. Looks the same now as then. Wish they'd get it finished and on display. Just preserving and assembling it as is would be fine as an historical artifact.

 

Let's not forget about the charcoal dust mixed in with the wood glue (some say the paint as well) as a way of reducing the aircraft's radar signature.

FWIW, last I knew that Ho 229 (the V3 prototype airframe) was in the Air + Space Museum's restoration facility out in Suitland MD

 

Yes, consider that the Jet powered version flew from California to Washington DC and back.
Took over 4 hours each way.

 

Years ago when the YB-49 was being touted I spoke with several of my big dome Boeing aero type friends and they said that the tailless was in constant pitch oscillation and even though they were minute , it was not a stable platform. Disaster could be a click away if the oscillations were not damped and controlled. The blended wing body vehicle being tested now at NASA is computer controlled and so would the full size aircraft.At high cruise speed an excursion out of the control envelope of the computer would last only a micro second.

 

It's 5 years old but here's a 2.1m RC 229 with twin 70mm electric ducted fans (same size as my 1.6m ME262, SR-71 and F-16, but hotter motors).

Gentle flying at 2:45 and landing at 7:40

https://youtu.be/5hxXIayV-RU?t=43s

 

I guess that's what happened to Glen Edwards and crew.

Obviously it's the computers that keep the B-2 stable. The Grumman X-29 would have also been uncontrollable if its computers were not monitoring the situation 40 times a second!

 

So it's not the lack of a vertical stabilizer that helps with this...

It's a horizontal stabilizer at some certain distance from the CG, maybe?

 

I remember seeing an interview with General Cardena? who was one of the test pilots of the B49 and recall he said it flew very well. I thought he said it was a yaw stability issue that while not a big issue prevented it from being a good bombing platform.

 

Brian- The XB-49 had a lot of problems. A low level flight over Washington DC really scared the test crew because of the danger. At one point a flag officer was going to insist on buying them, but the test team went able sugar on him and got it killed. It did not fly well.

 

he was correct. Yaw is a problem but not as serious as pitch. Yaw can be controlled with tip devices like the spoilerons on the current flying wings. In the 60's here in the Seattle area there was a Polish engineer named Kasper who designed and built a tailless design that was successfully flown many times by a friend of mine. The yaw was controlled by tip "rudders" that worked only to the outboard direction and they controlled the yaw very well. And the airplane flew very well in the pitch axis. Vitol Kasper had the wing twist calculated absolutely dead on but who knows what minute oscillations were taking place.

 

So, is there a tiny supercomputer in this model that keeps it from going into some oscillatory death dance? (I'm pretty sure I know the answer)

 

Gyros and advanced radios with control surface mixing functions

TowerHobbies.com | Hitec HG3XA 3-Axis Stabilization Gyro System

 

I'm not smart enough to expound on this phenomenon but if some of you tech savvy guys look it up .it will explain what happens when things get out of whack in the pitch mode. The NASA model with which they are testing the Blended Wing/Body configuration is quite large, 10-12 foot wing span and I would imagine that it can support a good array of small computers. High frequency-escalating amplitude happens very quick at higher speeds, I was told.

 

Aircraft like the F-16 are unstable or neutrally stable in all three axes. Unflyable without the flight control computers keeping everything pointed in the right direction. That is why their flight control computers are quadruple redundant. Same goes for the B-2. Early 4th generation fighters like the F-4, F-111, F-15, and F/A-18 would fly without their flight control computers (dampers off), but were pretty squirrely doing so. Still good enough to get them on the ground.

Similar things could be done with gyros and analog controls, but the bandwidth and response times were pretty primitive.

 

Pretty amazing technology right there! And for $30!

I suspect the military pays a little more for much the same technology.....

Cheers,
Ian

 

Thanks for those inputs, Taz. Very interesting.

 

+1

(As always!)

Quad redundant is a new on me - Triple, yeah - the theory being we'll go with the two that agree and ignore the third if things get "sketchy" in there.

But with four, what happens if two say one thing & two another!?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Somebody just needs to homebuild a flying wing with the Tower Hobbies gyro in it (x4)! It's hard not to laugh at how things evolve.