#Flying wing airfoil series
In time, a series of more advanced experimental wings led to the successful N-9M, four of which were built. But after more than two dozen flights over the dry lake beds near Rosamond, Calif., it was obvious the N-1M was too unstable on the vertical or yaw axis. In 1940, while Hitler’s legions were running rampant across Europe, Northrop’s new company produced the first true flying wing, the N-1M “Jeep,” featuring a laminated wooden wing. Air Force)īy 1938, after a series of successes with other companies, Jack Northrop was ready to follow his dream. Major Bob Cardenas (shown with a war prize Arado Ar-234 jet) served as chief test pilot for the flying wing program. It would mean greater fuel efficiency, simpler construction costs and time, and ultimately lead to a revolution in aviation. It was aeronautical design reduced to its purest form. Its structure would consist of one element: the wing. Northrop was determined to design and build a plane that eliminated every component that didn’t contribute to lift and forward thrust. Most of its structure contributed nothing to lift but added greatly to parasitic drag. The 100-year-old Cardenas, best known as the project manager and B-29 pilot for the Bell X-1 supersonic program in 1947 (see “Dropping the Orange Beast,” ), still vividly recalls his experiences as chief test pilot for the XB-35 and YB-49 flying wings.īorn from the fertile mind of aeronautical engineer John “Jack” Northrop, the flying wing concept was based on the idea that a conventional airplane consisting of wings, fuselage and vertical and horizontal stabilizers was inherently inefficient.
Robert Cardenas, whose career in Army khaki and Air Force blue spanned 30 years after World War II. The last living pilot to test the flying wings in the late 1940s is retired U.S. While the story of the short-lived YB-49 and its line of progenitors has been told before, some remarkable facts still emerge from the memory of a key participant in the flying wing program. Part of the airplane’s allure stems from its radical design and the tenacity of the brilliant engineer who conceived it. More than 70 years after the first Northrop YB-49 flying wing prototype took to the skies over Muroc Army Air Base in the Mojave Desert, the echoes of its jet engines still linger. Northrop's Radical Flying Wing Bomber of the 1940s Close
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