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July 25, 2009--At a Northrop Grumman facility in California, top stealth-plane experts admire their handiwork in late 2008—a full-size, though flightless, replica of a Horten 2-29, aka Hitler's stealth fighter, created for a documentary airing June 28 on the National Geographic Channel.

The team tested the re-created Nazi jet against World War II-style radar. With its radar-resistant design and 600-mile-an-hour (970-kilometer-an-hour) speed, the team concluded, the Ho 2-29 would have allowed British antiaircraft forces only 9 minutes to respond, versus 18 with a conventional World War II fighter.

Had Hitler's stealth fighter made it into mass production, the plane could have changed to course of the war in Europe, experts say.

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Before constructing their Horten 2-29 replica in late 2008, aerospace engineers from Northrop Grumman examined this craft. The only surviving example of Hitler's stealth fighter, this Ho 2-29 has rested, largely untouched, in a U.S government facility outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years.

Among other things, the team, using portable radar equipment, discovered that "they put some kind of carbon-type material in between the layers of plywood on the plane's leading edges," said Tom Dobrenz, a Northrop Grumman expert in stealth, or "low observable," technology, who led the Horten replica project.

"Personally, I cannot understand that being for anything other than doing something to [defeat] radar."

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Pictured at a U.S. government storehouse outside Washington, D.C., the only surviving Horten 2-29 is in the same state of partial completion as when it was discovered. During World War II, U.S. came across Hitler's stealth fighter when they captured a top secret facility in the woods near Frankfurt.

During the war's final days, the Ho 2-29 and other cutting edge Nazi aircraft were rounded up and shipped to the U.S. as part of Operation Seahorse. Today the plane resides at the National Air and Space Museum's Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland.

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Shown at a Northrop Grumman facility in California in late 2008, the Horten 2-29 replica, like the original, is constructed largely of wood and bonded with glue and nails.

The new craft's body was constructed around a rotor, which allowed the replica to be manipulated atop a five-story-tall column. There, in January 2009, the craft was subjected to World War II-style radar.

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The recessed engines of Hitler's stealth fighter (replica shown at a California facility in late 2008) would have helped the plane avoid radar detection.

By World War II's final months, the Ho 2-29's designers had begun work on a larger version, the Horten 18. The 18 was meant to be an intercontinental bomber able to take the war to the U.S. mainland and even deliver an atomic bomb.

But by early 1945, aviation historian George Cully said, "The Germans had run out of pilots, petroleum, and time."

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Source : PHOTOS: "Hitler's Stealth Fighter" Reborn





i've had that 3rd pic on my pc for half a decade now and often wondered what the hell; it was. pretty interesting, the Germans were amazing engineers. It's a pity a lot of their technology was destroyed by them at the end of both wars to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

[Magenta]

Good job Para! Interesting stuff

[güttsfükk]

i'd love to see a video of this machine flying

[firedog25]

The engine intakes look like they would've been a mad giveaway in terms of radar. Also, I hate modern stealth aircraft from a rescue point of view. They're not made rescue friendly if you look at all of them. Every leading edge is sharp, the materials they use in construction are toxic. Fucking hate them.

[Sie.Goat]

Nice, That first one is amazing. The Germans would have done brilliantly with it.