In aviation lore, few aircraft have captured the imagination quite as firmly as the Horten Ho 229-otherwise known as “Hitler’s Stealth Fighter.” Brothers Walter and Reimar Horten’s brilliant creation was decades ahead of its time, merging futuristic design and technology that is still captivating today’s military historians and aeronautics enthusiasts alike.
The story of the Horten Ho 229 begins in the early 1920s when the Treaty of Versailles banned the production of military aircraft in Germany. Glider clubs instantly mushroomed all over the country as youthful enthusiasts like the Horten brothers began experimenting with innovative designs. By 1932, the brothers had developed an all-wing glider, which was to be a forerunner of their more ambitious projects later on.
The breakthrough came in 1943 when the Nazi field marshal Hermann Göring issued a challenge to the Luftwaffe: develop a bomber capable of carrying a 1,000-kilogram bomb load 1,000 kilometers into enemy territory at a speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour. The Horten brothers responded with the Ho 229, a jet-powered, single-pilot flying wing. Göring gave them half a million reichsmarks to develop this long-range bomber; it had a steel framework covered in plywood, with wings finished in a green protective coating.
The first prototype-an unpowered glider-successfully took to the test skies in 1944. It was followed the next year by a second, jet-engine-powered prototype, proving such a powered flying wing could be controlled through flight. But the third prototype, the Ho 229 V3, would never get that chance to show just what it could do. In April of 1945, the V3 was recovered during Operation Paperclip-an operation to capture German intelligence and keep it from the Soviets-by Gen. George Patton’s Third Army.
It was taken to the United States, where, via several stops, it ended up at the Smithsonian, in 1952. Though it sat in storage for decades, it became an object of gossip and fascination. Some aviation enthusiasts have speculated that if the war had continued, the Germans might have used the Hortens’ designs to achieve the first stealth bomber. The claim of Reimar Horten, in the 1980s, was that he had planned to apply a layer of charcoal to the skin of the V3 to diffuse radar beams; experts agree such a coating would have been inadequate to let the craft evade radar effectively.
More than just a theoretical wonder, the Ho 229’s practicality was an influence on further aircraft designs. The flying-wing glider of the brothers Horten-which it will be remembered was of interest to one of America’s leading aircraft designers, Jack Northrop, as far back as the 1930s, who built flying-wing airplanes of his own during the 1940s. Stealth aircraft, basically flying wing-in shape, have been provided to the U.S. military for three decades by the corporation now called Northrop Grumman.
Necessity and an intimate understanding of aerodynamics drove the innovative approach the brothers applied to aircraft design. The flying wing design does away with the fuselage and tail, reducing both weight and drag, hence boosting its efficiency. This was, however, not entirely a new concept, as Hugo Junkers had patented a flying-wing design as early as 1910. Still, the Hortens were among the first to make this work properly in a jet-powered aircraft.
The Ho 229 did, however, have some serious issues: a significant amount of problems with aircraft the flying wings tend to “yaw” move from side to side and it can get uncontrollable when cases happen that the engine is turned off. So to solve this problem, the Horten brothers made the longer and thinner wing to spread the mass of the aircraft over a bigger area and therefore decrease drag.
The first powered prototype, the Ho 229 V2, made its first flight on February 2, 1945. It reached a speed of 975 kilometers per hour and was found to handle nicely with good resistance to stalling. On February 18, 1945, one of the V2 engines suddenly caught fire and stalled in mid-flight; the aircraft crashed, killing the test pilot.
However, the Luftwaffe was so impressed with the Ho 229 performance that an order for 40 flying wings in flyable condition was approved in April 1936. The aircraft was repurposed as a fighter armed with 30mm heavy cannons rather than the originally planned role of a bomber. But the production version never got a chance to fly because the war was nearing its end and the Allies were already deep inside Germany.
The Horten Ho 229 remains one of the most intriguing aviation chapters, a testament to the ingenuity and ambition of its creators. Never enter combat, per se, its influence can be seen across a wide range of modern stealth aircraft, such as the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. Pioneering work by the Horten brothers on this flying wing design continues to inspire and inform the development of advanced military aircraft today.