Talk:Horten Ho 229/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Pictures of replica

These are pretty cool photographs. Is this suitable to be included in external links? http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2011/02/hitlers-stealth-bomber/ -- Bobyllib (talk) 11:49, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Dubious

As has been discussed above in the 'Stealth' section and elsewhere, the claims of the Ho 229 being 'stealth' are dubious at best, and I'd seirously question a National Geographic "documentary" as a reliable source - NGC, History, and post-1990s Discovery "documentaries" tend torwards the "Nazi uberweapons rah rah rah" angle, alas. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's the experts from Northrop Grumman that are the reliable source for this; if they say the shape is somewhat stealthy and that the skin has radar absorbent properties, and that the shape is designed for reduced RCS, then I guess we have to take their word for it; they're the world-experts.Teapeat (talk) 03:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I mean nobody is saying it's a fully stealthy aircraft, but by applying attention to details you can reduce the radar cross-section significantly. The SR-71 was a semi-stealth aircraft, and only about ten years later, and America wasn't even at war. It's not magic, electromagnetism has been known since the late 19th century; the principles of radio would have been well known at that time, as well as some knowledge of what kinds of materials absorb radio.Teapeat (talk) 03:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

But full-stealth, that knowledge is about 40 years away.Teapeat (talk) 03:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Calling it "stealth", no matter what N-G engineers say, presupposes what we know today was known, & intended, by Horton engineers in 1943. Prove that, & cite it well, or leave it out. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 05:45, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

It would still be a low RCS "stealth" aircraft even if it was 100% accidental, but it has carbon loaded glue; that makes little sense except for stealth, and there's a quote from a Horten somewhere that he did that deliberately. The basic shape was probably accidental though, a lot of slippery aerodynamic aircraft aren't particularly visible on radar.Teapeat (talk) 07:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

But either way, it's not our call, it's the experts, and they've called it.Teapeat (talk) 07:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The question is, how reliable is Myrha? And rememeber that a lot of things even "experts" say - especially about Nazi wonder-weapons - have to be taken with grains of salt; the tale of H-45 is a caution. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I doubt anyone is going to read this, but here goes.

With regards to "but it has carbon loaded glue; that makes little sense except for stealth" - simply put nothing could be farther from the truth.

When the 229 was under construction there was a dire lack of resin wood glues to work with, since pretty much all the factories producing resin were no longer in operation. So what were the Hortons to do? Adding charcoal to wood glue is a very old, simple and cheap method of improving the strength of wood glue. I believe this is the primary, if not sole reason for the presence of carbon in the wood glue.

And to add to that simply adding charcoal to glue is not going to magically give you reduced RCS properties. The RAM materials used on stealth aircraft do have carbon in them, but it is far more complex then simply tossing some in to the mix. The size of the carbon "pellets" are carefully selected and applied to the skin in a way that ensures an equal, grid like distribution. This is far beyond just adding charcoal to the glue.

As far as Myrhas claims that the aircraft was designed for stealth, keep in mind that this is based on interviews he conducted with the Horton brothers after the B-2 became known publicly. In the years after WW2 the Horton brothers published several books, and not a single one of them made any mention of stealth in the design of the 229 or any other aircraft designed by them. Until the B-2 came out of the black that is - then they released a new edition of an earlier book with mentions of stealth and the addition of coal to the glue as an attempt at making RAM. Furthermore interviews with other engineers at Horten after turn up zero mentions of stealth. And one interview with an engineer in the 90s, when asked about the stealthy aspects of the 229, stated rather emphatically that there was no attempt at stealth with the 229. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:117:C080:520:5E26:AFF:FEFE:8C40 (talk) 07:10, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Myrha seems to be an aviation historian/enthusiast like quite a few other authors out there. (He has published a bunch of books.) Anyway, the original paper, not written by Myrha, is available here. Someone not using his real name (talk) 00:09, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

No charcoal in the glue

In the National Air & Space Museum's own extensive material on the Ho-229, there is a chapter titled "Is It Stealthy?" That lengthy text (and photos) details the NASM restoration shop's quite thorough assay of the Ho-229's structure. I'lll spare you the details, but the very last sentence of the report reads, "[It has been assumed] that crafts persons used the 'carbon black material' to lower the RCS, however, our technical study findings described above found no evidence of carbon black or charcoal in the Horten jet." The NASM says that the material mistakenly thought to be charcoal is simply "oxidized, or very aged, wood."173.62.11.254 (talk) 17:33, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"Jet never flew"? Wrong.

The box with the three-view of the Ho. IX on the opening page claims that the H.IX V1 glider flew but that "the jet [version] never flew." This is untrue. The H. IX V2 jet flew three times "officially," crashing fatally at the end of the third flight, and may have made a couple of short, unrecorded hops as well. You can cite any of David Myhra's many books on the Horten Brothers and their airplanes. Granted Myhra is a Horten-lover who has made a small industry out of writing about them, but he probably does know more about the Hortens and their airplanes than anybody else, at least anybody else writing in English.173.62.11.254 (talk) 21:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Good spot. Fixed.Nigel Ish (talk) 06:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Northrop Grumman, not Northrop-Grumman

The name of the company is Northrop Grumman, unhyphenated, not Northrop-Grumman. If you need a citation, go to the company's website, www.northropgrumman.com.173.62.11.254 (talk) 18:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Stealth claims debunk

http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2010-9214

and

http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/horten-ho-229-v3/about/is-it-stealth.cfm

If anybody has an athena account the first would be an interesting read

Greglocock (talk) 09:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (onus probandi), and without references back to actual German WW2 documentation indicating RCS reduction as a goal (however worded), the Horten book is nothing but an attempt to boost their relevance by making unsupportable backward claims. They were a footnote - their contribution to Germany's war effort was less than nil since it precluded other possible contributions, their contribution to aviation was almost nil since no-one has followed up on their work with any successful designs - all of those flying wings which were even moderately successful trace their own history elsewhere - such as to Northrop or much earlier to Arnoux (1912 Stablavion/Stabloplane) or Dunne (starting with the 1907 D.1 and running to the 1912 D.8).

The RCS replica omitted the tremendously significant matter of the engine faces (which act as radar beacons to the front and rear) when it comes to radar reflectivity so its value is nil, even if the all-wood structure did mimic the steel tube structure of the original.

There is also a major logical error in making the assumption that the RCS of an all wooden replica is comparable to a differently constructed aircraft whose RCS we don't know, but want to test for. We can copy the RCS exactly only if we already know what it is, and we can only know that by testing the original or an exact replica of the original.

If the goal was to test an unknown RCS signature they shouldn't have made substantial changes that invalidate the value of their tests, and they needed to do the test as the aircraft would have been flown - with engines installed and with the same construction, including the steel tube structure. Anything else is blowing smoke. What they proved was NOT that the Horten's built a stealth aircraft, but that by impregnating plywood (which is nearly invisible to radar) with charcoal (which strongly affects radar waves) its has an effect on radar waves - which has little or no bearing on an aircraft that didn't even have charcoal impregnated between the plywood in the first place, as per the Smithsonian's own research. - NiD.29 (talk) 17:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Here's the Horlick paper http://resources.conservation-us.org/osgfiles/osg021-10.pdf Greglocock (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Late to comment but the testing was against Chain Home frequencies and not Chain Home Low which operated at higher frequencies (200 Mhz ) specifically to detect low flying aircraft? GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

The Horton Ho 229 is extremely Deadly...

The Horton Ho 229 is deadly and could have changed the fate of WW2, but the Horton brothers aborted the wing to avoid being caught by the Allies.

Stealth: The Horton can be tracked, but you have 8 min to respond to coast line entrance, and have 2 1/2 min of reaction time. Sending planes could have been a shameful act,due to it's great speed can outnumber an group, however, Guided missiles and Anti-aircraft fire can probably pest it off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:145:8000:EFC2:11EE:F97E:D2FB:4080 (talk) 02:19, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Be very afraid. The New Jersey Nazifanbois are here! Oh noes.... Greglocock (talk) 03:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Diaperwaffe on patrol. Here be monsters. Flanker235 (talk) 04:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Someone heard a who! BilCat (talk) 05:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The stealth section

At some point I will remove the disinformation from the current stealth section and try and put a coherent account together from the fanboi interpretation of what northrop said and the rather less enthusiastic response of the Smithsonian. Greglocock (talk) 22:30, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Done Greglocock (talk) 18:49, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Blazing Angels

The Horten Ho 229 was used in Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII, labeled as the Gotha Go 229 (Go-229 for enemy planes). Should we mention that here? Xninetynine (talk) 00:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC) X99

No, same as always. Any significance the Ho-229 has for that game is not commutative with that game's significance to this article.

Secondly, it's a pretty obscure game (we might make a better case for mentioning Flight Simulator in Cessna 182), and it's utterly fanciful. de Havilland Vampires in WWII? Zeppelins? "Tesla weapons"? Andy Dingley (talk) 09:17, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Cost of Horten replica

Hallo!: the article indicates a cost of $250'000 for building at Northrop Grumman a full scale mockup of Horten Ho-IX/ Gotha Go-229 to test its radar stealth features, however, a team of retired airplane mechanics put recently in a near flight conditon a Convair B-36, indicating a total cost of $500.000. Are both figures compatible? Thanks. Regards. Salut +

Radar frequencies and Northrop tests

The quoted radar frequencies for the British during WW2 refer only to the Chain Home system, which operated between 20 and 55MHz and does not reflect the rapid development of RADAR during the war. Even the Germans would have known by the time of the HO 229 development that the Allies were using much higher frequencies.

By 1942 the AMES Type 7 was the standard radar system in Britain, operating at 192, 200 or 209 MHz, depending on the version.

The British developed the magnetron sufficiently for practical use in radar by 1940 and shared with the US via the Tizard Mission. Radar using this was rapidly manufactured in the UK and US, easily capable of hundreds or thousands of Watts at frequencies in the Ghz range and small enough to fit into aircraft. It was one of the pieces of secret equipment to be destroyed by aircrews in the event of an aircraft falling into enemy hands. The H2S system was installed in British aircraft from early 1943 and on only the second mission one was captured, leading to the Germans to develop a detection system.

Germany in comparison continued to use the klystron, which had lower power output, but was also capable of higher frequencies.

By 1943, the British were developing Radar to operate at 10GHz for terrain mapping purposes to improve bombing acuracy.

Regarding comments in the talk section above. The use of carbon in the coating of the aircraft potentially for radar absorption is perfectly feasible. Carbon is less conductive than metals, so eddy currents created by the absorption of radio energy will tend to cause a heating effect and the energy will not be reflected or re-radiated in the same way that an aluminium or other more highly conductive surface might. Although more recent studies show that carbon was not in fact used in the glue on the surviving aircraft, as stated in the main article.

The frequencies quoted in the section about Northrop radar testing seem like bad editing by someone without technical knowledge. THz represents 10 to the power of 12. This is 1000 times higher than the frequency range of most modern radar, which operate in the GHz range, whereas 12 THz is in the Far Infrared and 117THz is in the mid Infrared frequency range. Even GHz would be surprising as allied radars only operated to 10GHz during the war. I would suggest the tests were most likely from 12MHz to 117MHz or 117GHz. Lkingscott (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Wrong image caption

The second picture says "Horten H.IX V1 before a test flight". However, the picture shows not V1 but V2, as can clearly be seen due to the intakes of the jet engines at its nose (V1 was in March 1944 already and had no jet engines at all). There a a couple of photos of this test flight and it most likely show the test flight on February 2nd, 1945 (or on Feb 18th, when the accident and crash happened). Unfortunately, also on Wikimedia Commons the caption is erroneous, but the date of the photograph given as Feb 2 seems to be correct. 2A02:AA16:1105:6F00:44DF:1448:B212:3B23 (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Fehler: Horten H.IX V1 = Horten H.IX V2

Das Bild "Horten H.IX V1 before a test flight" sollte eigentlich heißen = "Horten H.IX V2 before a test flight"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horten_H.IX_V2.jpg ( V1 ist nicht V2 ist nicht V3 und auch nicht Horten Version 4 und 5 ) 89.186.158.129 (talk) 10:46, 2 December 2022 (UTC)