Jnewboy wrote:Everything I read said that it performed well in the air and out maneuvered an me-262 in a mock dogfight. The German test pilot and Horton prototype crasher due to a engine malfunction or flame out. German Jet engines lacked the necessary metal alloys to make them very reliable or long lasting, this is why the 262s were built to swap out motors easily. All in all I think that the design was sound but the engines needed the alloys that Germany had been starved of by 1945.
I'd be very skeptical of any reports from the period -- things were so confused in the last few months and weeks of the Nazi regime that we often only get little fragments here and there from only a single point of view, with no corroboration and not much context. I'm at the point where I've read a substantial amount of what's available on the development and implementation of the A4/V2, and I've definitely noticed that whole threads of the story just evaporate into speculation in the Spring of '45 -- and that was a program that had both post-war superpowers' intense attention.
[CAT]CplSlade wrote:Yeah, that article really doesn't say anything about the capabilities of Horten's wing. It seems more a testament to Northrup's lack in this regard.
From the point of view of an aeronautics amateur, I'm pretty sure the problem lay with pure flying wings in general. I can well remember my dad talking about Vought's work on near-flying-wings and how they struggled with the issues. At one level, I think there's a kind of aesthetic obsession that can happen to aeronautic designers -- a shape becomes THE thing and gets pursued to the detriment of everything else. Before the age of computer-aided control, I feel like the "Horten dream" may have been like that. Looking at the 229, it's easy to see how such a thing could happen ...
aferguson wrote:To fly as a fighter would require good handling and stabilty for the pilot to retain control of the aircraft during manouevering and i doubt the Gotha would have had that back in '45. At least the very least they would have probably needed to add horizontal tails, like the northrop flying wing bomber....that would at least solve the problem of where to put the swastikas.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
If I wasn't spending so damned much money on my 3D printing insanity, I'd buy two of PH's kits and make one with vertical stabs (which I'm sure you meant above), just to see what it would have looked like ...
aferguson wrote:Since the swastika was an important symbol of nazism, you'd think they would have put them on somewhere. All german aircraft had them, save the V-1, which had no national markings at all.
... also not the V-2
aferguson wrote:Jnew: jet fuel was not in short supply and was relatively abundant. Pilots were another story and given this plane would have been at the very least quite tricky to fly, that would have been a huge problem. But it would have been a problem for most of the german wonder planes like the Lerche, Triebflugel etc. That's what made planes like the Komet and Natter so appealing. Not a lot of pilot skill was needed for either. Had the war started in '45 these planes still would not have existed. It was the urgency of losing the war that stimulated their development.
It's hard to get a handle on what the most important shortages were at the end. I HAVE read that fuel was in short supply in some places. Both alcohol and liquid O2 definitely were for the V2 in some places and at some times. But, as for the Japanese, the shortage of well-trained pilots was a problem everywhere.
Jnewboy wrote:Speaking of that have you or anyone else built a Natter? I would love Mathew to build one in 1/18
I know there aren't allot of Luftwaffe buffs in 1/18 but I think it would sell, but the best part is that its so small and simple.
I dunno -- the popularity of all the Luft birds that have been made in 1/18 seems to indicate there would be interest for just about anything ... The Natter would actually be a good project for 3D printing ... I could get to it some time in the 2020s ...