{"id":1908005,"date":"2023-03-31T18:59:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T22:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-the-real-story-on-the-invention-of-stealth-aircraft\/"},"modified":"2023-03-31T19:00:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T23:00:20","slug":"heres-the-real-story-on-the-invention-of-stealth-aircraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/heres-the-real-story-on-the-invention-of-stealth-aircraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the Real Story on the Invention of Stealth Aircraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fheres-the-real-story-on-the-invention-of-stealth-aircraft%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1908005&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<p>Despite what you may have seen on the internet, the Nazis <em>did not<\/em> invent stealth aircraft. But let\u2019s talk about why this myth has become so prevalent in recent years. <\/p>\n<p>A big part of it comes from the lackluster reporting of <i><em>many<\/em><\/i> mainstream news and history outlets eager to capitalize on clickbaity titles about Nazi superweapons over the years. These stories often paint World War II Germany as a terrifying technological juggernaut that was always<em> just on the verge<\/em> of a new breakthrough that would turn the tide of the war.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no denying that scientists and engineers working under the banner of Hitler\u2019s NAZI party were often at the forefront of their respective fields. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/doolittles-raiders-the-legendary-wwii-namesake-of-the-b-21\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">World War II<\/a>, Germany deployed the world\u2019s first operational cruise missiles in the V-1, and the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/nazi-germanys-long-range-reprisal-weapon-the-vergeltungswaffe-ii-v-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">operational ballistic missile in the V-2<\/a>. They also fielded the world\u2019s first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262, though they were fielded too late in the war to make much of a difference. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also no secret that nations like the U.S. smuggled many of these scientists and engineers out of Germany during and after the war, putting them to work on advanced programs that would continue to garner headlines for decades to come.<\/p>\n<p>But in recent years, our human affinity for mystery, combined with society\u2019s growing distrust in governmental institutions, and our subsequent interest in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/russias-high-profile-weapons-are-all-smoke-and-mirrors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">conspiracy theories<\/a>, have emboldened a small faction on the internet to give Nazis credit for a wide variety of inventions they actually had <em>nothing<\/em> to do with. Within the aviation circles that I tend to run in, stealth \u2014 or specifically, the means to delay or even defeat radar detection \u2014 is high among them. <\/p>\n<p>So, let\u2019s put this myth to bed, once and for all. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/russias-high-profile-weapons-are-all-smoke-and-mirrors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How Russia uses the media to convey a false image of military prowess<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-the-horten-brothers-famous-flying-wing\">The Horten Brothers\u2019 famous flying wing<\/h2>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>The basis for the claim that stealth was actually a Nazi invention is really born out of the works of Walter and Reimar Horten, brothers who began experimenting with unusual airframe designs prior to the outbreak of World War II. They got their big break in 1943 when the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann G\u00f6ring, called for new light bomber designs that could carry 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of munitions at 1,000 kilometers per hour (620 mph) to targets as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away. <\/p>\n<p>To make things even tougher, the Nazi commander wanted the aircraft to retain a third of its fuel for combat, meaning it really needed an unrefueled range of some 3,000 kilometers (about 1,864 miles) to manage to trek to the target and back with a third of its fuel reserved for the fight. <\/p>\n<p>The Horten brothers recognized that achieving those speeds with such a payload would require using recently developed turbojet engines, but these high-powered engines came with a huge drawback \u2014 they were fuel hungry and inefficient. <\/p>\n<p>The British had made significant leaps in radar technology during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/the-forgotten-code-breaking-women-of-wwii\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">World War II<\/a>, but the Horten brother\u2019s flying wing design wasn\u2019t born out of any interest, or even <em>awareness<\/em>, that such a design could help delay detection. Instead, they chose it because it was aerodynamically efficient. With no tail surfaces to produce drag and a streamlined flying wing body, their Horten H.IX design was all about reducing the fuel requirements for long-duration, high-speed flight. <\/p>\n<p>And while their design would become the first jet-powered flying wings, flying wings themselves had already been around for a while. The earliest tailless flying wing design may be credited to France\u2019s Alphonse Penaud in 1871, but the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airandspaceforces.com\/article\/jack-northrop-and-the-flying-wing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">real powered<\/a> <em>flying wing<\/em> was actually a biplane called the D.4, which was developed by a British army officer named John William Dunne in 1908. <\/p>\n<p>Just about two years later, Germany\u2019s Hugo Junkers patented his own large flying wing transport aircraft concept, using the same logic the Horten brothers would leverage decades later: a simple and aerodynamically clean tailless wing would allow for better fuel economy to ferry large payloads of passengers and materials across vast distances like the Atlantic Ocean. <\/p>\n<p>The Horten\u2019s proposal was the only one submitted to the Nazi government that even came close to their requirements, and they immediately set about building an unpowered glider to demonstrate their design. Following a successful flight of the glider, they moved on to building the H.IX V2, often referred to as the Ho 229 V2, which was the same design with the addition of two Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engines \u2014 the world\u2019s first production turbojets to see operational use. <\/p>\n<p>But the concept wouldn\u2019t go much further than that. In February of 1945, the V2 crashed, killing its test pilot, and although the Nazi government ordered 100 of the jets (to be called the Ho 229), the war ended before the third prototype, often called the Ho 229 V3, was even finished. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/doolittles-raiders-the-legendary-wwii-namesake-of-the-b-21\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Doolittle\u2019s Raiders: The legendary WWII namesake of the B-21<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>When the war ended, nobody really cared about the Horten\u2019s flying wing <\/h2>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Horton Ho 229 V3 (National Air and Space Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s no secret that Nazi scientists and engineers were working at the very forefront of the technology of their day. As the war came to a close, more than 1,600 of these specialists working under the Nazi banner were recruited to work for the United States under Operation Paperclip, and more than 2,500 others were brought in by the Soviet Union in their own Operation Osoaviakhim. These specialists continued to work on a variety of new programs for each nation in the years that followed, and can often be found named under prominent programs like NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/the-soviets-crashed-into-the-moon-while-apollo-11-was-on-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apollo missions<\/a> and others. <\/p>\n<p>These very real facts, along with legends about Nazi anti-gravity propulsion drives, hidden Antarctic bases, and even secret moon landings, all served to further the myth that Nazi scientists were not just well-funded and forward-looking, but were somehow <em>decades or more ahead of <\/em>their global peers.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, the Horten brothers were not blessed with advanced or otherworldly knowledge. That fact becomes apparent when you consider the post-war careers of its inventors. Reimar Horten first attempted to negotiate with both the UK and China for an opportunity to continue developing his flying wings, but after <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=MSa7B9oovacC&#038;pg=PA216&#038;dq=reimar+horten,+argentina&#038;cd=7#v=onepage&#038;q=reimar%20horten%2C%20argentina&#038;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">neither expressed any interest<\/a>, he settled on emigrating to Argentina. <\/p>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Remains of the Horton Ho 229 V3 (National Air and Space Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>And this is the first place in my research where it became overtly clear that the <em>narrative<\/em> surrounding the Horten brothers, the Nazis, and stealth was doing more of the heavy lifting in this tale than their <em>actual<\/em> engineering work ever did. Somehow, according to countless outlets, Reimar Horten was <em>brilliant <\/em>enough to develop the first stealth aircraft decades ahead of anyone else, but he wasn\u2019t smart enough to realize that <em>Argentina<\/em> wouldn\u2019t be able to offer him the same level of resources a newly emerging global superpower could.<\/p>\n<p>But even when people are willing to address that point directly, they still bloviate wistfully about <em>what could have been<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cReimar had fallen on hard times in the 1950s,\u201d Russell E. Lee, curator in the aeronautics department of the\u00a0National Air and Space Museum, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smithsonian-institution\/truth-stranger-fiction-hortens-all-wing-aircraft-design-180976095\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Smithsonian Magazine<\/a>. \u201cAt that time, Argentina did not have the aeronautical resources of the United States. I don\u2019t think he realized that until after he got there. If things had gone differently, who knows what he could have accomplished?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Reimar\u2019s continued work would eventually lead to the notably <em>not-stealth<\/em> flying wing called the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/FMA_I.Ae_38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FMA I.Ae 38<\/a>, based directly on the Horton Ho V3 prototype that was never finished. One would expect an aircraft <em>based<\/em> on the legendary Nazi stealth fighter would have been a resounding success with nearly two decades worth of additional refinement, but instead, it made only one successful test flight before being canceled in 1960. <\/p>\n<p>Walter Horten gave up on pursuing aircraft design and remained in Germany to serve in the nation\u2019s post-war Air Force. If these two enterprising men had <em>actually<\/em> unlocked the <a href=\"http:\/\/Why is it so hard to develop stealth aircraft?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">secrets to stealth<\/a>\u2026 it seems remarkably unusual that no nation was interested in learning more about it. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-develop-stealth-aircraft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why is it so hard to develop stealth aircraft?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Horten brothers vs. Jack Northrop<\/h2>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Northrop\u2019s YB-49 bomber (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>While some of the reasons for internet trolls giving the Horten\u2019s credit for developing stealth can be boiled down to something as simple as their design bearing a passing aesthetic resemblance to the B-2 that would fly decades later, there\u2019s actually more to it than that. <em>Some of it<\/em> has to do with other flying wing programs that were going on before, during, and after the Horten brothers\u2019 work. <\/p>\n<p>Jack Northrop, the famed founder of the defense industry giant known today as Northrop Grumman, expressed his interest in the gliders being developed by the Horten brothers in the 1930s. He and his firm would go on to develop a variety of flying wing designs for the U.S. military, eventually culminating in the B-2 Spirit. For those who are eager to credit Nazi Germany with the development of stealth, this is one of the elements often pointed to. However, attributing Northrop\u2019s flying wing successes to the Horten brothers\u2019 failure requires omitting a fair bit of important context. <\/p>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Jack Northrop standing next to XB-35 (U.S. Air Force photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Jack Northrop, born in 1895, began experimenting with flying wing designs in 1929 with his first company Avion \u2014 though his first \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nurflugel.com\/Nurflugel\/Northrop\/flying_wing\/flying_wing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">flying wing<\/a>\u201d actually had a prominent tail section attached via booms. Walter and Reimar Horten, born in 1913 and 1915, respectively, began their own experiments with flying wing gliders in 1933 as members of the Hitler youth. <\/p>\n<p>In 1940, Northrop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airandspaceforces.com\/article\/jack-northrop-and-the-flying-wing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fielded<\/a> his first true flying wing, the N-1M (which stood for \u201cNorthrop First Mockup\u201d). The aircraft even performed well enough in testing that it prompted the Air Force to request a design proposal from Northrop for their new bomber program.<\/p>\n<p>This new effort called for a range of 6,000 miles and a top speed of 450 miles per hour, allowing the U.S. to conduct bombing raids against Nazi Germany from across the Atlantic in case England were to fall. His resulting design was the XB-35, which the Air Force agreed to help develop in November 1941\u2026 three years before the Horten brothers began their design work on what would become the Ho 229. In fact, the Horten\u2019s first powered flying wing, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Horten_H.VII\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">H.VIII<\/a>, made its first flight in 1944.<\/p>\n<p>However, the XB-35 design was prop-driven, while the Ho 229 was jet-powered, making it a more advanced approach.<\/p>\n<p>And to be clear, the Ho 229 V2 <em>did<\/em> take flight more than three years before Northrop\u2019s first jet-powered flying wing, the YB-49. By that point, Northrop\u2019s team did have access to the wreckage of the Horten brothers\u2019 prototypes, but Northrop himself didn\u2019t seem to think much of them.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cForget it, they\u2019re just glider designers,\u201d he reportedly said of the Hortens.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, that\u2019s not to say that the Northrop team didn\u2019t glean <em>anything<\/em> from the Hortens\u2019 work. It\u2019s safe to say neither he nor his team would be eager to advertise any lessons learned from recovered Nazi hardware, and as is always the case in aviation, advances made by one nation often inform the advances made by others. <\/p>\n<p>But the fact of the matter was, Northrop and the Horten brothers could be seen as contemporaries in the flying-wing field. The idea that Jack Northrop <em>got the idea<\/em> for flying wings from the Hortens, and that idea somehow birthed the B-2 a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/how-aviation-week-beat-air-force-security-to-steal-pics-of-the-stealth-bomber\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">half-century later<\/a>, is more about keeping the myth of Nazi stealth alive than it is about any <em>real<\/em> history. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/heres-your-first-look-at-the-b-21-raider-americas-new-stealth-bomber\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Here\u2019s your first look at the B-21 Raider, America\u2019s new stealth bomber<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-reimar-horten-was-better-at-inventing-myths-than-stealth-fighters\">Reimar Horten was better at inventing myths than stealth fighters<\/h2>\n<p>Reimar Horten may not have been able to garner any real interest in his flying wings outside of Argentina, but that didn\u2019t stop him from making grandiose claims about what his design <em>could have been <\/em>throughout the remainder of his life. If anything, it was Reimar\u2019s claims in the 1980s that became the basis for the myth of Nazi stealth that led to the rest of the narrative gymnastics we\u2019ve come across thus far. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to understand that, although the U.S. didn\u2019t acknowledge that the F-117 was operational until 1988, and didn\u2019t give the world its first glimpse of a real stealth aircraft until 1989, stealth itself was a very open secret for years before that. During the 1980 presidential election, the Carter administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/politics\/1980\/08\/14\/carter-to-support-new-us-bomber\/d449b8bf-5f2f-4a78-829e-148f5c654c1d\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">disclosed<\/a> that there was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/1980\/0825\/082544.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stealth \u201cplane\u201d<\/a> in development to curb criticisms leveled by Reagan over the cancelation of the B-1 program. By 1982, America\u2019s \u201csecret\u201d stealth bomber was already a part of budget discussions in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1982\/02\/07\/us\/reagan-s-military-budget-puts-emphasis-on-a-buildup-of-us-global-power.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New York Times<\/a>, and by 1986, shows like \u201c<em>The A-Team<\/em>\u201d were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvmaze.com\/shows\/1058\/the-a-team\/episodeguide\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">referencing stealth bombers<\/a> in their plot lines.  <\/p>\n<p>So it comes as little surprise that in 1983, Reimar Horten took advantage of all the new stealth aircraft hype to reinvent the Horton Ho 229 as a Nazi <em>stealth <\/em>aircraft. <\/p>\n<p>According to Reimar, he had <a href=\"https:\/\/airandspace.si.edu\/research\/projects\/conserving-horten-ho-229-v3\/stealthy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">always intended <\/a>to combine sawdust, charcoal, and glue and apply it between the layers of wood that made up most of the Ho 229\u2019s external surfaces.  <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>He claimed that \u201c<em>the charcoal should absorb the electrical waves. Under this shield, then also the tubular steel [airframe] and the engines [would be] invisible [to radar]<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Now, in 1983, this struck some as feasible, but of course, today, we\u2019re well aware of the complex chemistry involved in producing polymer (or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/the-technology-that-could-make-hypersonic-stealth-fighters-a-reality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ceramic<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/what-are-radar-absorbent-materials\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">radar-absorbent materials<\/a>. If mixing charcoal with sawdust could actually reduce an aircraft\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/How much stealth can you add to a 4th generation fighter?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">radar return<\/a>, maintaining the F-22 would be quite a bit cheaper. But just to be on the safe side, a Northrop Grumman team analyzed the surviving remnants of the remaining Horten 229 V3 to look for any signs of this radar-defeating charcoal mixture \u2014 and they believed that they did indeed find some. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cDuring our inspection of the Horten 229 at the Smithsonian museum, it appeared that a material similar to carbon black or charcoal was mixed in with the glue between the thin layers of the leading edge shape,\u201d their <a href=\"https:\/\/arc.aiaa.org\/doi\/10.2514\/6.2010-9214\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">peer-reviewed paper<\/a> states.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So they used a portable radar reflectometer called the Next Generation Sensor to assess the return created by the leading edge of the aircraft\u2019s center section\u2026 and found that it actually created a greater return than their control sample, which was just a 3\/4\u2033 inch piece of plywood. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe Ho 229 leading edge has the same characteristics as the plywood [control sample] except that the frequency [do not exactly match] and have a shorter bandwidth. This indicates that the dielectric constant of the Ho 229 leading edge is higher than the plywood test sample. The similarity of the two tests indicates that the design using the carbon black type material produced a poor absorber.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And to make matters worse for Horten\u2019s claims, a subsequent analysis conducted by the National Air and Space Museum during the aircraft\u2019s restoration concluded via digital microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Fourier-transfer spectroscopy tests that there was no actual charcoal in the glue after all \u2014 which, along with there being no mention of this \u201cstealth\u201d concoction in recovered documents pertaining to the Ho 229\u2019s development, all suggests the whole story was nothing more than a fabrication that was given much more credence than was ever warranted.<\/p>\n<p>But that wouldn\u2019t be the last time Horten\u2019s claims would be given far more credit than they deserved\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/how-much-stealth-can-you-add-to-a-4th-generation-fighter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How much stealth can you add to a 4th generation fighter?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>National Geographic and \u201cMyth Merchant Films\u201d brought Reimar Horten\u2019s unfounded claims to the mainstream<\/h2>\n<div>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>In 2009, National Geographic released a Northrop Grumman\u2013sponsored \u201cdocumentary\u201d made by <a href=\"https:\/\/mythmerchantfilms.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Myth Merchant FIlms<\/a> called, <em>Hiter\u2019s Stealth Fighter<\/em> that went pretty far out of its way to portray the Ho 229 not only as the world\u2019s first real stealth aircraft, but potentially even one that could have helped the Nazis win the war. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, by now, it should be clear that neither of these claims is true, but it only gets worse from there. In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kowjlqwy5XA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commercial<\/a> for the documentary, the narrator claims that the \u201c<em>only surviving Horton 229 has remained hidden in the shadows and away from prying eyes<\/em>,\u201d later claiming within the documentary that the aircraft was being stored in a \u201c<em>secret government warehouse<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The real truth is that it was stored outside in Chicago for a time before being moved to the Smithsonian\u2019s restoration facility in Maryland (which is hardly a secret), where it sat for 60 years \u2014 spending some of that time in an open wood shed. <\/p>\n<p>For the sake of the documentary, Northrop Grumman invested $250,000 into building a replica of the Horton Ho 229 V3. They then bombarded it with radar to assess just how stealthy it really was. Their analysis revealed \u201cmoderate radar-deflecting properties,\u201d which the documentary presented as undeniable proof that this Nazi stealth fighter was the <em>real deal<\/em>, saying outright that their findings revealed, \u201c<em>just how close Nazi engineers were to unleashing a jet that some say could have changed the course of the war<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Horton Ho 229 V1 glider<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever watched an episode of Ancient Aliens, you\u2019re probably already familiar with the qualifier \u201c<em>some say<\/em>\u201d as a means to presenting utter nonsense as fact simply because <em>some say it<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Editor\u2019s Note: <\/strong>We did have a YouTube video that discusses the inaccuracies depicted in \u201cHitler\u2019s Stealth Fighter,\u201d but despite<\/em> <em>our work clearly falling within the legal framework of \u201cFair Use,\u201d Myth Merchant Films filed a copyright claim against us to have the video taken down. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>But what about the Northrop Grumman teams\u2019 findings that the aircraft replica they assembled <em>did offer<\/em> \u201cmoderate\u201d radar deflecting capabilities? Well, that <em>also<\/em> required a fair bit of creative liberty. As Stephan Wilkinson pointed out in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/horten-brothers-jet-flying-wing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">excellent write-up<\/a> on the topic in 2020, making the Horton Ho 229 <em>that<\/em> stealthy meant leaving out most of the things that made it a fighter, a bomber, or even an aircraft. <\/p>\n<p>The Horten brothers\u2019 original design included an 11-foot-wide center section made of welded steel tubing that Northrop left out of their replica. The Ho 229 also had two early turbojet engines\u2026 which Northrop also left out of their replica. They also left out the Ho 229\u2019s eight large aluminum fuel tanks, and perhaps most importantly of all, the aircraft was designed to carry munitions externally, but they didn\u2019t include any of them either. In effect, they omitted all of the elements of the wooden aircraft that would have produced the most prominent radar returns, and then called the result <em>moderately stealth<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/stealth-fighters-by-the-numbers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fighter Comparison: Russia\u2019s stealth fleet ranks 11th in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Nazis didn\u2019t invent stealth, and the Horten brothers were no visionaries<\/h2>\n<div>\n<figure><figcaption>Horten H.IX V1 glider prior to test flight (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Horten brothers did absolutely develop and fly the world\u2019s first jet-powered flying wing, and that alone earns them a place in discussions about the flying wings that would follow \u2014 but the idea that these two young men were engineering visionaries so far ahead of their time that we\u2019re still struggling to catch up is nothing more than the Horten\u2019s own efforts to rewrite history and the sensationalized story-telling that leaned on their narrative for the sake of ratings, readers, or clicks. <\/p>\n<p>The Ho 229 never actually existed \u2014 and instead manifested only as a dream of what could have been if the aircraft\u2019s powered prototypes had eventually produced an operational aircraft. Those prototypes were groundbreaking, in large part, because by 1943, Nazi Germany was willing to throw money at anything that might help them win the war. Flying wings weren\u2019t new at the time, but sticking expensive new turbojets into them <em>was<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>These aircraft weren\u2019t exotic glimpses of the future \u2013 by most accounts, they were poorly assembled and riddled with design flaws. The Ho 229 V2 prototype that actually flew, for instance, was nearly impossible to fly at first because Walter Horten determined its center of gravity using a measuring tape that was <em>missing its first 10 centimeters<\/em>, famously skewing the aircraft\u2019s balance so much that the test pilot said he could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/horten-brothers-jet-flying-wing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">barely keep it airborne<\/a> with the stick pulled all the way back. When he landed, the aircraft hit so hard that it damaged its landing gear as a result. Of course, even after fixing that issue, that same prototype would later crash \u2014 killing its test pilot. <\/p>\n<p>If World War II had never happened, the Horten brothers may have had promising careers as kit airplane and glider builders, but almost certainly not as the forefathers of stealth. <\/p>\n<p>The truth is, Jack Northrop got a lot wrong in his comments over the years about the Horten brothers, but he hit the nail on the head about one thing\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cForget it, they\u2019re just glider designers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>Read more from Sandboxx News<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/how-much-stealth-can-you-add-to-a-4th-generation-fighter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How much stealth can you add to a 4th generation fighter?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/why-is-it-so-hard-to-develop-stealth-aircraft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why is it so hard to develop stealth aircraft?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/why-does-the-navys-new-stealth-fighter-have-the-f-a-prefix-like-a-super-hornet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why does the Navy\u2019s new stealth fighter have the \u201cF\/A\u201d prefix like a Super Hornet?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/americas-enemies-can-track-stealth-fighters-on-radar-and-it-isnt-a-problem\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">America\u2019s enemies can track stealth fighters on radar (and it isn\u2019t a problem)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandboxx.us\/blog\/the-technology-that-could-make-hypersonic-stealth-fighters-a-reality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The technology that could make hypersonic stealth fighters a reality<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite what you may have seen on the internet, the Nazis did not invent stealth aircraft. But let\u2019s talk about why this myth has become so prevalent in recent years. A big part of it comes from the lackluster reporting of many mainstream news and history outlets eager to capitalize on clickbaity titles about Nazi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1908006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[8415,3751,5001,7226,4178],"class_list":["post-1908005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-aircraft","tag-heres","tag-real","tag-stealth","tag-story"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1908006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}