Military Jet Bombers, Jet Bomber Model Airplanes, Plastic Model Kits.

Dear Jeff, I am writing you a quick note about the Northrop YB-49 flying wing bomber per your request on the web site.  I worked for the Northrop corporation as a preliminary design engineer during the development of the current B-2 Spirit in 1982, and had access to the company records and flight data of the original flying wing bomber, which I absorbed with fascination.

The flying qualities of the original B-49 were better than all of it's contemporaries, it flew stable and was very maneuverable compared to it's competitors, it held both payload, range and point to point speed records at the time, and it was also recognized at having a very low radar signature (radar was a relatively new technology at the time, and considered a major future threat).

The persistent rumors of poor flying qualities and stability problems are out right lies and speculations by so-called "experts".  They stem from a tragic accident that had nothing to do with the flight qualities.  The flight crew during had exceeded it's design load factor during flight test of the flying proto-type .  They were doing high g "pull-ups" from shallow dives and exceeded the flight envelope as outlined in the flight test plan.  No one knows for sure why, but perhaps control felt good to the flight crew and did not realize the danger they were in pushing the proto-types limits, or perhaps the clean design caused them to exceed the design speed faster than expected.  In any case they overloaded the airframe and sheared off the outer wing panels at high g.  The investigation report stated these outer wing panels were failed upwards.  On a swept wing design this is the equivalent of losing the horizontal tail on a conventional design.  And it tumbled end over end to Murdoc dry lake below with the loss of everyone on board (the same way a conventional aircraft would without a horizontal tail).  The pilot name was Edwards, and the air force base bears his name.

Despite this loss, the newly formed air force was so impressed with the design after the then required fly-off of all the competing designs, they placed large orders to replace all of their old Army Airfare bombers.  There was a crooked senator who was chairman of the equivalent to today's Armed forces Appropriations Committee who was offered some sort of stock option if the contract went to Consolidated Vultee (later to become Convair).  After the contract was granted to Northrop  after the production had began, and after qualifying of the first production examples had began, this senator had called Jack Northrop personally and told him that the government did not want to support a lot of smaller companies in the post war period and he would have to merge with Consolidated Vultee to keep the contract.  He found out that it was not a merger, but rather a take over of his company that he had started some years before the war.  He called the senator back and said no thanks, a week later the contract was illegally canceled and all the production aircraft and tooling ordered scraped.  And one of the worst bombers the US has ever bought, the Consolidated Vultiee B-36 became our front line bomber.  Several years later this senator was investigated and Jack Northrop had perjured himself on the stand because he was afraid of his company being black listed.  Despite that the senator went to jail for corruption.

I have more details, dates, names, etc. available somewhere in my files at home.  If you want to know more I will be happy to dig them up for you.  This was all detailed at about the time of Jack Northrop's death in 1979 (I think) in the Los Angeles Times newspaper.  I may have even kept the article somewhere, and I know I have more information in some of my personal files.

Many people who are familiar with the advantages of the all wing design for long range heavy lifters (as in freight or bomber aircraft) think if it was not for this corruption, many air liners today would have been all wing designs.  While at Northrop I had run across drawings and a performance report of using the B-49 design as the basis for a passenger airliner.  The rows of seats ran span wise within the wing, the windows were all in the wing leading edge, giving all the passengers a pilots eye view of the flight

Some of the details I have outlined above may not be quite correct since I wrote this from memory, but I will be happy to go find what I have on this shameful event in us the flying wing history.  It is good see someone is still offering a model of the history making, even if ahead of it's time, YB-49 bomber.  The father of our current front line B-2 bomber.  I also have a number of personal experiences to relate about how and why the B-2 bomber came about, if you are interested.

I noticed you have a model of Avro Vulcan XL 462 but the facts on it are completely wrong! Now I know this because I am one of the  engineers that works on Avro Vulcan XL 462 at South end Airport. First of all it never saw action in the Falklands conflict or any where for that  matter, secondly it retired from service in 1986 after serving the Vulcan Display Flight for two years, thirdly it entered service in 1962 and  lastly we are called the Vulcan Restoration Trust not 'Vulcan Memorial Supporters Club'

South end Airport is in the small coastal town of South end near London, UK. If you are based in the US then the only Vulcan I know of in the  states is the one at a aerospace museum in California.

Many thanks Jamie Everett

Webmasters Note: Built by Northrop Corporation in San Diego, even though this bomber could carry more payload, fly faster and farther than the B-29 this aircraft was never used in active service.  The reason for this is not exactly clear.  It was said to be unstable and difficult to control especially in high cross winds.  However, the other story was that the federal government wanted Northrop to merge with another larger company.  This would relinquish control to the larger company and leave Northrop's founder, Jack Northrop out of the decision picture.  When Jack Northrop would not allow the merger, the federal government "Black Balled" the Northrop company and ordered every prototype of the Flying Wing destroyed.  If anyone knows more about this story or can tell me if it is the actual truth, please let me know at the bottom of this page.  C. Jeff Dyrek

To: Jeff Dyrek

Hello: My name is Craig Boissy and I am something of an amateur  historian  who loves WWII & the cold war. You are probably already very aware of  some of  or even all of what I am about to tell you; But just in case no one has  already written you on this............................

The US Government did indeed  twist Jack Northrop's arm to merge with  Convair  its competitor in general and specifically its immediate competition for the   long range bomber contract. Of course you can be rest assured that  Convair   only wanted to buy out the competition to put them out of business not  because they were going to do anything with wing technology. There were   many  improprieties they were well known at the time and that's why Northrop  could  not be killed off entirely. A lot of very embarrassing stuff would have   kept  whirling around a lot longer and then it did. Also there would almost  certainly have been more serious investigations into the matter. Some  of   those improprieties were things like The chief of the Air Force (  General  McNarney ) sitting in on a meeting between Jack Northrop and the   president  of Convair to discuss possible consolidation. This in and of itself was  at   the time illegal and unethical. Further General McNarney was a major  stock  holder in Convair. Guess what happened at a meeting he was not even   supposed   to be at? He did all the talking and threatened and cursed at Jack  Northrop  telling him he had " GOD DAMNED better merge or he would never make  another  plane " Yep and it gets better the good General was up for retirement  and he   was going to be looking for a top level job in aerospace. Guess who had  one   waiting for him? It wasn't Boeing, Martin or Hughes. Finally in the end    though  the Hardball politics did not do in the Flying Wing; it was a series of   serious mishaps leading to the death of some of the best test pilots of   the  day including Glenn Edwards. There were a great many in explicable   things   about those crashes and suspicion turned to an aviation maintenance    mechanic   who had been responsible for for checking the engine cooling systems on   all   3 of the wings which had fatal crashes. Guess what ? they found him   dead out  in the middle of the desert. There is more....much more but you get the   picture. The wing was flawed and once it was converted to jet power it   did   not have the range of the B-36 it then became competition for the B-47  which   had already been excepted and was faster. Still it had possibilities.  Which  is why the Government kept funding it. In the end the technical and   practical considerations which probably would have favored Convair  anyway ( at least in the short term ) had nothing to do with the death of the   flying   wing and the blackballing of Northrop it was back room dirty deals ,  politics and quite possibly sabotage that did.
Best regards Craig