Was This The First Stealth Fighter? - Horten Ho 229

today's episode about the horton 2 to 9 is made possible by the free-to-play game war fonder to get started use the link in the description below to sign up free and get a free premium vehicle more on this at the end of the video so there is the story out there that the horton true to 9 a German jet from over - it's a stealth fighter now it is but it really isn't so let's talk about that now before we get started to this I actually wanted to make this video for over a year now if not longer during most of this time I actually have been sitting on the books and the resources that I need but if you've been watching for me for some time you know that I want to get my hands dirty in the archives and do some proper research so I decided to go to the National Archives in Kew London and look at what they have on the Whorton 229 big thank you here also to my patrons and my channel members for making such wishes strips possible and once I had everything that I needed well that's when I finally sat down to make this video and with that hello and welcome everyone welcome back to military aviation history I am your host Chris and yes the Whorton ho2 2/9 is a special aircraft its shape is futuristic in 1945 and this is jet it was cutting edge back in the day since the 1970s or so the mystique around this aircraft has been growing mainly revolving of course around its supposed stealth characteristics type that into YouTube and you'll actually can't quite a number of hits straight out saying that this is a stealth aircraft put that into Google same story let me just get one thing straight over here I'm already sick and tired of this I am already sick and tired of me using the word stealth in this video even though it's only just started without any context so before we talk about the plane quick simplified summary of what stealth actually is a stealth is a popular term used to describe tools used to reduce the detection of an object such as aircraft stealth is not one item but an assemblage of techniques which make a system harder to find an attack these can in fact be very crude camouflage arguably falls into the wider umbrella of stealth but it is generally omitted because especially in recent times the term has been given a very sort of pro-technology bias and what most peoples equate to stealth is the reduction of an aircraft's radar profile by purposely designing an aircraft in a given fashion coatings materials and shapes could make objects less easy to detect both the u2 and especially the sr-71 explore this concept even by putting the primary emphasis on altitude and/or speed for survivability now for the sake of completion I'll also add countermeasures to infrared radio frequencies even excessive audio profiles and electronic warfare any sort of active emissions control well they are also all part of stealth but that really goes outside the scope of this video today well today when talking about stuff I am mainly talking about what's known as the radar cross-section or what's abbreviated as RCS all objects illuminated by radar will reflect energy to some extent the radar cross-section is a parameter denoted by Sigma used to characterize the scattering properties of a radar target it represents the target size as seen by the radar and has the dimensions of square meters our CS area is not the same as physical area but a measure of the targets ability to reflect the radar signals in the direction of the receiving antenna two of the main tools to lower the chance of detection are scattering and absorption an example is the use of radar absorbent coating on aircraft weakened thus returning signal or altering the shape of the aircraft in such a way as to deflect incoming radar waves if you want to stretch all of this you could say every single play as stealthy just in different ways to each over depending on their relative or detectability or that no plane really is stealthy because all of them have some sort of return that could in theory be detected you cannot hide an aircraft completely you can get very close depending on your system and of course on the detection system and you can act as if you are pretty much invisible in many scenarios but stealth is more than that the object of a stealth platform must be first to prevent detection but next to prevent recognition on the basis of the relevant observables so yes I could say that compared for example to a b-17 dho 2 to 9 is a stealth aircraft probably I actually don't know the rate of return of either aircraft to make an empiric statement about that so just take that as an educated guess but how and in what way a b-17 compares to a two-tone EIN is completely irrelevant and practice and that's really what matters those planes that significantly reduce their chance of dictation and now they are specifically built to do so with passive and active means incorporated in them are considered to be stealth aircraft before we continue this the purpose of this video is not at all to compare the Whorton 2 to 9 with other aircraft or to show you that it is not in fact stuffy I really don't like using that word by the way like this but hey there's no other way I don't have the data to do any of that because there is no data to do any of that which in itself as we will see should give us a question or should make us question really blanket statements such as that the Horten 2 to 9 is a stealth aircraft what I want to show you is what is known about the aircraft how the story about its delve characteristic developed and once you are equipped with that knowledge you can then make your own verdict on the whole matter so how did this story about the Horten two to nine being a stealth fighter start well largely due to the convenience really of its similarity to existing stealth aircraft like the b2 the flying wing layout was found to have the smallest possible vertical plane areas and hence the least radar reflecting surface while it's simple shape precluded the flexion of the incoming electromagnetic waves in the direction of the signal source the searching radar stealth warplane such as the Norfolk B to a appear to have design feature strikingly reminiscent of the Horton ho2 to a nine no wonder that the astounding idea of Nazi stealth arose and became almost universally accepted by the media critical in my view of the Hortons prominence in the public eye was also a documentary aired on a u.s. American TV channel back in the 2000s I personally don't think it was a very good documentary in fact I think it was very misleading but that's just my opinion in any case in most of the discussions I see on the internet invariably I will run into people who seem to cite information out of this documentary that they have just taken at face value now before we go into this we want to have a quick look at today's sources in the archives of scores and the National Archives in the UK I found for example a summary drafted by the British on all the hoard birds in October 1945 it's probably the most exhaustive summary of all the life's work of the Horton brothers so especially right now we're really just after the war and I also found a summary of interviews of the Horton brothers themselves there was also one intelligence sighting from October 1944 that pertains to the horton 2 to 9 and the message and I am NOT making this up if you want you can check the file again if you know yourself when the archives open but it reads petrel doctors in operating getting and span estimated 80 to 100 feet and this is just why I love going through the archives you know the stuff you find it's it's just amazing and I hope of course that's also why you like the channel because well I go to archives and I do this kind of research for the channel now because of the rules with commercial use of the images that I take at archives I can't really show pictures here but go ahead and follow me on Twitter and Instagram I'll check the rules again and maybe I can post some of the the files that I took pictures of there in the coming days no guarantees I'll just have to check again then there is a study written by the Smithsonian on the analysis on their analysis of the only surviving 2 to 9 and also a study by Norfolk Grumman that plays a role in this video and of course then there's also this book by Shep Elif and autumns of the very straightforward title Horton ho2 to 9 it's pretty good but the most complete study of Rama Hortons life must be only the wing by Russell Lee it's currently out of print and let's just say it's very hard to come by so when I actually went to get myself a copy I was confronted by this yeah I got myself a copy I managed to get this via a local library there's no way I could actually afford that price but I have been in contact with the offer and it seems like this book might get a reprint so for those people who are interested that is something worth keeping your eyes on for the rest of the sources of course you can check out the description as always talking about the Hortons radar detectability then we have to talk about three different aspects aspect number one the context to rhymer Hortons claims that the horn through nine was stealthy aspect number two the material used in the horn to the nine and then of course aspect number three the flying wing itself after the war i'ma did not have much luck in getting a job or many of his colleagues went for example to the United States or found employment somewhere Reimer Hortons chance as well of employment in the US or in the UK quickly faltered a rhymer Horton was and remained how shall I say this he remained an outsider really he came from an enthusiast self-taught background and he didn't get his PhD until after the war and he always to the end of his days when he maintained that he and his ideas weren't taken seriously because well he lacked academic credentials the British and Americans might have understood Rama's accomplishments if they had flown and evaluate the various horton aircraft immediately after the war for a time the Allies seemed eager to do so but during the final months of marauding allied troops and displaced persons had destroyed nearly all of them over the course of one month however interest in doing so peaked at the highest level before fading to nothing of course he did get some offers after the war but these were retracted quite quickly not due to his credentials mind you in the UK for example companies that wanted to employ Horton had been negotiating with him were threatened by a mass strike from their staff lest they had to work with a German for most of his post-war life rayma was stuck in Argentina where he initially led a modestly good life although it never really improved but for all intents and purposes he was stuck at the end of the world and I don't mean this as a slide to Argentina they actually had quite a vast an import aeronautical program but he was outside of the your nautical circles that really mattered internationally those that were in the US in the Soviet Union or in Europe and it's here now completely outside of those circles that he suddenly starts publishing claims about the Horten two to nine later in his life i'ma Hortons aviation career was faltering possibly as an attempt to bolster his reputation he promoted the idea that the Whorton ho2 293 was intended to be built as a stealth aircraft which would have placed this jets design a decade ahead of its time one of rhymers first claims that the Horten had some sort of stealth in it came in 1950 when he published an article in d in a hope I promise correctly in the Vista Nationale de aeronáutica and Argentinean aeronautical magazine there in that article he claimed the wooden construction of the Tudor line was key in getting the plane a stealth character because the electrical wave reflection is good for metallic surfaces said Hortons however in what surfaces a reflection of these waves is small in a so much as these are hardly visible on radar let's talk about the specific claim them and does turn to aspect to the materials used in the two-tone eyne there is this idea floating around in some circles that well would automatically makes a plane stealthy that's not the case it's been especially gaining popularity the last sort of ten years I would say but it also for example pops top of the de havilland mosquito from time to time however it's one of those things that just doesn't really hold up to scrutiny here it should be noted that despite the widespread belief the wooden construction of an aircraft does not necessarily would use its razor of visibility known is the fact that the old wooden de Havilland Mosquito was in no way invisible it is true that wood is predominantly radar transparent material reflecting and dissipating only a small fraction of radiation but with the skin transparent to the rail erase the inner structures such as the engines or the tubular frame of the ho2 2/9 would reflect the incoming radiation nonetheless now what does interact with radio waves differently to matter of course it does but that doesn't mean much in itself this this idea that wood is sort of this magical ingredient sounds really cool if it were true but it's not because if it was pretty much the whole Soviet Air Force during World War two would have been still fleet and German radar really had no problem in picking those guys up but in what both by the way I mean what applies to wood also applies to plywood to get a bit more technical here would in itself does reflect radar waves differently to metal of course it does and what can impact us from the density of the wood over to for example the frequency of the radar being used but overall wood will still reflect and someone I know actually made a really great analogy on this by saying that the imagine you're shining a light at a car or a mirror there is going to be light that's going to be reflected back but it's going to reflect differently right that's essentially the analogy that you can use there rhyme are in the 1980s started talking about his choice of what again a rhymer claimed that he had specifically used wood to build a substantial portion of the airplane because the aircraft would not reflect radar energy he record a technician sandwich 12 millimeters of charcoal sawdust and glue between two 1.5 millimeter thick sheets of plywood before using this composite material to skin the wings now as we will see there is no evidence currently available to us to confirm this on the topic of his building materials it is more likely that Rama used wood because well that's all he had oh no he knew this project was only running because his brother managed with syphon of funds and materials and some men even from the rice industry in a completely totally illegal endeavor and the hot brothers had no factory or industrial plant they had to rely on another company Agathe to build this machine and for the second prototype for example they they used the tail wheel of a destroyed Heinkel HD 177 bomber as their front wheel and repurposed the aircraft the huncle's aircraft hydraulics they didn't have anything else the hot brothers where well they were scrounging up what they could find and did so for many many years then we come to Rama's next claim that he wanted to use a special mixture to reduce the planes radar signature in 1983 and I'm a Horton wrote in new Frugal that he had planned to combine a mixture of sawdust charcoal and glue between the layers of wood that formed large areas of the exterior surface on the ho9 Jet wing to shield as he said the whole airplane from radar because the charcoal should absorb the electrical waves under the shield then also the tubular steel airframe and the engines would be invisible to radar remember here that rhymer claimed he did this to absorb electrical waves that would be important at the end of this video now following of course the public interest in the match the Smithsonian well they sat down and they wrote a proper paper about the aircraft they had in their care looking for evidence of this mixture it's called a technical study of the bat wing fighter this was written by six researchers and published in 2014 by a Loren Horlick the conservator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum the stealth myth has been growing since the 1980s and was invigorated by the National Geographic Channel in collaboration with Northrop Grumman produced a documentary called Hitler stealth fighter in 2009 the program featured the Horten age o two to nine we free as a potential wonder weapon that arrived too late in the war to be used the documentary also referred to the jet storage location as a secret government warehouse which added to the mystique of this artifact in fact this warehouse is the Smithsonian Institution's Paul E Garber facility in Suitland Maryland where a team of conservators material scientists a curator and aircraft mechanic have been evaluating the aircraft now in that study they analyzed the planes building materials by taking the small sort of samples of the aircraft structure and then examining those for various means Reimer Horton stated that he wanted to add charcoal to the adhesive layer of the plywood skin but as we discovered there are two adhesive layers used to form the apply wood skin despite our best efforts to either validate or debunk i'ma Hortons claim the fact remains that we have a dilemma of scale pursuit of identifying this material the problem of looking for something tiny like charcoal particles within something huge like it yet is that it opens the door for speculative thoughts about looking and sampling in the right or wrong location we characterized a material of in the plywood adhesive that shares many commonalities with charcoal but is not clearly and definitively charcoal based on the model we have in the Smithsonian Reimer Hortons claim well it cannot be verified this might also be because well this is a prototype refree was a prototype it's in the name and perhaps he had plans to use charcoal in the main production variants but that is pure speculation at this point at a similar juncture the Smithsonian actually concludes that Reimer Hortons published statement in the 1980s about wanted to our charcoal to the production model must be taking at face value as an idea a production model was never fabricated and the prototype does not show any clear evidence of charcoal as a stealth ingredient it is not clear when rhymer first had this idea he first published it in 1983 why not in 1950 or when he was trying to make himself more attractive to the Allied companies post-war now it is possible that the brothers were well developing some sort of adhesive or mixtures out of those materials that they cited but there is no evidence that this was done for for stealth if it did help it would have been a lucky coincidence it probably weren't even aware of it I don't think they would have been unhappy if they were less likely to be picked up by a radar but at that time I don't think it was a big concern of the earth they were more concerned about having a glue that would stick together and their planes would not delaminate beyond that I think it's probably also something I said earlier and that is that he didn't have anything but wood and his makeshift adhesives to build his aircraft in the first place although the presence of charcoal as a stealth ingredient appears unlikely the opportunity to investigate the adhesive matrix revealed a microscope of additives and inclusions which can be seen as an artifact of materials availability after time all of the results from the technical study provided insights to the material choices of the Gopher workshop which speak to an economy of wartime availability along with an unusual combination of experimental and traditional material use this is where I turn to the last aspect the flying wing itself the two to nine was designed as a flying wing from the outset and I will argue that this was done with absolutely no regard to stealth or its detectability it stands at the very end although an action no it doesn't sound at the very end it stands at the end but not a variant of Rama Hortons obsession with flying wings he was certainly not the first one to come up with such designs that's a myth I don't know where it comes from but that is often repeated and it's not true depending on how we look at it the first flying wings Bakshi drone up even before World War one but I even flown before World War one and quite a few concepts were trials before the 1930s when Horton started out but while Rama wasn't the first not even in Germany remind you he became an absolute fanatic on the no circumstances and I really say under no circumstances would he compromise when it was pointed out for example to him that the ho2 2/9 had extreme problems with oscillation and control at certain speeds there's that keyword a Dutch role you might have heard about it before he adamantly refused the introduction of a vertical stabilizer something actually even his own brother told him to do because they wanted to get this aircraft produced he thought that he himself could fix the problem without really spoiling his flying wing concept what I find interesting about rhymers claims is that he has quite a fixation on the materials used but he never really talks about the shape of the aircraft he does so I decide really but the shape really is so so very important and he doesn't give it enough attention the primary method for reducing radar cross-section was to shape the aircraft surface so that a deflected radar returned in predictable ways once the aircraft's basic shape has been designed for lower RCS a second step is to apply material to the surface area and further reduce RCS the whole shape might have contributed to the comparatively lower detectability than a similar aircraft at a time for example the mission of a vertical stabilizer the traditional tail arrangement could have benefited a plane in that regard as most radar waves they pinched on an aircraft at near horizontal angles vertical surfaces on the aircraft have to be eliminated completely or at least kept to the minimum in order to reduce radar reflections however the assumption here that the Horten 2 to 9 was designed with this in mind is yet to be proven not a single source has been found to this and everyday to confirm this and when the possibility of adding a tail to 2 2 to 9 was erased in Germany by offer colleagues and by rymus brother himself because well the plane had some problems with control and Reimer flat-out refused but there is no document to showed or a testimony to say that Rama did so because he was concerned about stealth instead he tried to overcome this problem in his own way the airplane was not to have a tail because Rama was being Reimer not because it was a stealth issue this is one of those lucky coincidence where a design built for completely different reasons certainly has the potential externality no one reckoned with but remember just because it's a flying wing doesn't mean it's stealthy it's not that easy making a stealth aircraft is more complex than that the design is not quite so simple any uniformly curved surface would act as part of a sphere and reflect energy randomly some of it towards the radar side we are trying to avoid such a design process could be expected to be and actually is very complex and costly this is one of those cases where just because something looks like something doesn't mean that is something yeah just because it looks tough it doesn't mean any stealthy just because a car looks fast doesn't mean it's fast it might be a go-kart adaptive a lamborghini chassis the single-minded attention to the Horten to 9/4 its stealth character glosses over the actual accomplished means that Reimer horton had with the aircraft the two to nine have problems its use as a fighting platform is let's just say it's questionable considering the control problems that the aircraft had but it was an engineering feat that deserves to be recognized well know wartime document is known to confirm any self activities within the Luftwaffe the horton two to nine can in any event be considered a precursor to the latest flying wing the blended wing body and related development both military and civil stealth or not the horton 2 to 9 was many things it was a futuristic design a beautiful aircraft a flying wing with jets all of the swedish should give us a reason to acknowledge it it was and remains an aeronautical achievement an achievement often ignored in our fascination to try and find something special about this aircraft the actual work and dedication by Reimer to his life's work of the flying wing is completely cast aside as as the clandestine but really impressive effort by his brother in pooling resources for this project by finding clever ways to cheat the system I mean he really I mean water was a logistical and bureaucratic genius but when it comes to stealth empirical evidence stops short of what some stories would like to make you believe and really to be honest if the Horton Brothers were working on something like stealth why keep it a secret from the Allies oddly enough neither the Horton brothers North Hunsberger mentioned the RCS techniques applied to the horton 9 to Allied intelligence specialists immediately after the war a peculiar omission in light of what Imus interest in resuming his work finally if the Horton nine was as speedy as why my estimated why would the aircraft need to evade radar detection when it could outrun any Allied fighter one of the files I looked at from the National Archives the horton 2 to 9 is described in quite some detail as are all of the Hortons of our designs those are the fun burrow reports by the way if in case you already know them any mention to stealth however must be really he well hidden in the file because well it ain't there there's also a summary of the interviews of the Horton brothers and no stealth is mentioned there now I know some people might have well might have seen that famous offer I should maybe probably say infamous documentary about the horton 2 to 9 where they rebuild one from scratch an aircraft model a one to one the people of Norfolk Grumman built it and they did a really good job but the documentary probably had some I shall call this unfortunate directing that omitted some of the details the model for example is representative rather than an exact copy although this is mentioned in the documentary as well and that is also completely normal but it also means that it uses different materials which can make different luckily enough you don't actually have to rely on the documentary to tell you the details of north of grammar study because the engineers wrote a proper paper themselves it's called aviation archaeology of the horton two to nine Lee free aircraft a full-scale RCS model was fabricated with modern techniques to simulate the aircraft as it would appear to electromagnetic energy the original aircraft structure was constructed of a steel tube trustees uncovered by what skins the RCS model was constructed of wood to replicate the original design and complex parts were fabricated by modern techniques such as stereo lithography so the plane is a representation not a copy also with reference to the charcoal the study concludes that the ho2 the nines leading edge has these same characteristics as the plywood except that the frequency do not exact match and have a shorter bandwidth this indicates that a dielectric constant of the ho2 the nines leading edge is higher than the plywood test sample the similarity of the two tests indicates that the design using a carbon black type material produced a poor absorber and quote now it continues his absorber proved to be unsuccessful and only increased the dielectric constant of the edge remember how wry mind in 1980 said the charcoal mixture was added to absorb electric waves well turns out it doesn't do that and in fact makes matters somewhat worse the only thing we can definitely say about the Horten 2 to 9 will be that it has a lower radar cross-section as some other plants and they will have a higher radar cross-section than offers in that regard it is stealthier compared to some plants out there but come on that in itself doesn't make it a stealth aircraft you know the same argument would hold true to a Cessna that just shows you how irrelevant that statement is in the first place now that brings me to the problem of hindsight nowadays because we have to be - for example well the flying wing design is automatically translated into sort of this conception of stealth but if we follow such reasoning we are making assumptions when the assumptions that do not hold up based on the evidence that we have one must keep in mind that a pure flying wing configuration with no vertical or horizontal tail surfaces would generally be expected to have a lower radar cross-section as compared to conventional aircraft design but there is considerable evidence to suggest that such designs were initially pursued because of the inherent aerodynamic properties of the design not because of stealth if you look at a story of rhymers claims some very basic questions pop up where is the evidence the physical evidence with that I mean not just anecdotal that he worked to overcome radar because well there must be at least something if he did that why this is a second question why did he not try to land an immediate job by telling the Allies that he himself had found a way to defeat radar then why did he only come up with these statements piecemeal really sort of long after the war one after the other and why does focus on stealth and not for example the aircraft speed because speed would have probably and be well probably been the two trains best defense really why did he not continue his work on stealth why did no one he work of ever talked about it why do none of the documents in the archives at least those I found describe it I mean someone must have talked to get better better treatment or a job or something why did rhymer always talk about materials and didn't spend as nearly as much time talking about the aircraft shape when both are important in decreasing RCS and those would just be sort of the basic questions that come up before anyone scrutinizes even the Horten two to nine on display in the Smithsonian or should comment about its stealth character but if you want to sell a story questions get in the way following the heightened interest in all winged aircraft after the public unveiling of the us's Northrop b-2 bomber imaginative writers considered none of these questions as they extrapolated from the similarity of the b2 to the h9 to conclude that Verma had designed a first stealth aircraft I purposely and deliberately with using the h9 s Jet wing RCS however it was regrettable that so many writers concluded based solely on rymus words and without supporting documentary or physical evidence that he had not only accomplished a similar result more than forty years earlier but also purposely designed the wing to evade radar detection so hope that you enjoy today's episodes thank you to Warner for sponsoring this episode and providing the footage of the horton ho2 293 you saw in this video the horton 2 to 9 is one of the a staggering amount of over 1,000 planes tanks and ships currently in the game which are all designed to look as close to reality as possible I especially like Warner's mixed tank and plane battles because it allows me to give tactical air support to my team and the friends I play with nothing is more satisfying than blowing up that tank that's pinning down your allies Warner gives you the option to crow tanks planes and ships and fast paced and easy to get into action over to a more difficult simulation like game mode never mind what your preference is Warner has something for everyone if you want to fight with or against me remember to use the link in the description below to sign up for free and get a free premium vehicle thank you to Jack for providing one of the books I used thank you to Andrew for reviewing the script big thank you also to trend for helping with my questions on radar sources are are as always in the description below and as always I hope you have a great day and see you on the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 149,059

Rating: 4.8694777 out of 5

Keywords: Horten, Ho 229, Stealth, Wunderwaffe, Luftwaffe, Germany, secret, weapon, project, 229, Smithsonian, Education, History, Military Aviation History

Id: NSrszi6ivyM

Length: 37min 16sec (2236 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/geeiamback]

Interesting - the mentioned Discovery Channel Documentary used to be on youtube fully, but I can't find it anymore...