"Preliminary Technical guidelines for fast fighter planes with jet propulsion"

Preliminary Technical guidelines for fast fighter planes with jet propulsion

Horten Ho229 - How to reach performance and radar question.Part 2 - compiled by Cesar Winklemann

Horten Ho-229 V3 captured by the United States Army, 1950

In his later life, Reimar Horten promoted the idea that the Horten Ho 229 V3 was intended to be built as a stealth aircraft, which would have placed this jet’s design several decades ahead of its time. Reimar Horten claimed that he wanted to add charcoal to the adhesive layers of the plywood skin of the production model to render it invisible to radar, because the charcoal “should diffuse radar beams, and make the aircraft invisible on radar” (Horten and Selinger 1983). This statement was published in his 1983 co-authored book Nurflügel (which translates as “only the wing”). While this statement refers to the never-made production model, it seems possible that the experimental charcoal addition could have been used on the Horten Ho 229 V3 prototype. The mere mention of early stealth technology sparked the imagination of aircraft enthusiasts across the world and spurred vibrant debate within the aviation community.

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain - the father of jet engine

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (14 December 1911 – 13 March 1998) was a German physicist, and designer of the first operational jet engine.[1] His first design ran in March 1937, and it was one of his engines that powered the world's first flyable all-jet aircraft, the prototype of the Heinkel He 178 (He 178 V1) in late August 1939. In spite of these early successes, other German designs quickly eclipsed von Ohain's, and none of his engine designs entered widespread production or operational use. Von Ohain started to independently develop his first turbojet engine designs during the same period that Frank Whittle was working on his own similar designs in Britain, their turbojet designs are said by some to be an example of simultaneous invention.