![]() Indeed, the two aircraft share exactly the same wingspan. The B-2 Spirit, while utilizing radically different technology, bears a strong visual resemblance to its distant cousin. Northrop would not realize success in an all-wing airframe until decades later. No meaningful evidence has ever emerged to substantiate these allegations. A few dark rumors implied that the accidents suffered by the YB-49 prototypes had not been accidental at all, but rather the result of sabotage. Jack Northrop, founder of the company, believed that the Air Force canceled the YB-49 because he would not agree to a merger with Convair. The last prototype, a recon variant, flew until 1951 and was scrapped in 1953.Īdvocates of the YB-49 long nursed the belief that the Air Force had deliberately sabotaged the program in preference for the B-36 and other, later bombers. The Air Force cancelled the contract for the YB-49 in May 1950, shortly after this second accident. Another was lost during taxi when the nosewheel collapsed, leading to a fire that destroyed the entire aircraft. ![]() One prototype was lost with five crew members in June 1948, when the aircraft broke up in midflight. ![]() The YB-49 prototypes suffered an unusual run of bad luck. Unfortunately, while the YB-49 could outrun the B-36, it lacked the speed of Boeing’s new B-47 Stratojet medium bomber. However, the fuel-hungry engines shrank the YB-49s combat radius, making it more comparable to a medium bomber than to the long-range B-36. The service ceiling of the YB-49 also increased, an important consideration for escaping Soviet interceptors. The jet engines improved the top speed of the bomber to 493 miles per hour, an improvement of about 20% over its antecedent. Northrop developed a plan to re-engine a number of incomplete XB-35 frames with jets, eventually completing three such conversions and preparing several more. ![]() Air Force (USAF) found the flying wing concept sufficiently intriguing that it proposed redesigning the XB-35 airframe around a jet, rather than piston, engines. The Air Force, which acknowledged that both the B-36 and the XB-35 were largely obsolete, canceled the latter instead of the former because it believed that the problems of the B-36 were easier to solve. By 1944, the XB-35 had fallen behind the B-36 (although both suffered significant technological problems), and in any case the immediate strategic necessity for a trans-continental bomber had waned. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |