National Geographic News (June 25, 2009)
"Top stealth-plane experts have re-created a radical, nearly forgotten Nazi aircraft: the Horten 2-29, a retro-futuristic fighter that arrived too late in World War II to make it into mass production...."
The article gives a pretty good overview of a working military jet, made mostly of wood, that was designed to be virtually invisible on radar.
I could be wrong, but I detect some NIH (Not Invented Here) in one statement: "...Some experts, like the Garber facility's Lee, question the Hortens' postwar claims that their plane had been intended as a stealth plane...."
The National Geographic News article is, of course, intended to encourage people to watch the company's program this Sunday, June 28. It also is a pretty good look at one facet of recent history.
If contemporary tests show that the Horten design was 'stealthy, Germany came very close to having a fleet of stealth bombers in WWII. This could have changed the course of the war - at least for a short time, until countermeasures were developed.
"...But by early 1945, aviation historian George Cully said, 'The Germans had run out of pilots, petroleum, and time.' "
No comments:
Post a Comment