Was the YB-49 Actually the First ‘Stealth’ Bomber Ever to Fly?

By Robert Farley,The National Interest

As the United States approached World War II, it enjoyed the luxury of many innovative aircraft companies, and a ton of money to spend.  Part of this bounty went to pursuit aircraft, part to tactical attack planes, and part to long-range bombers. This last generated one of the most interesting failures ever to emerge from the U.S. aviation industry; the Northrop YB-49 “flying wing” bomber.

(This first appeared several weeks ago.)

The Flying Wing

Early aviation engineers appreciated the potential for a “flying wing” design. A flying wing, which minimizes fuselage and usually eliminates the tail, reduces many of the aerodynamic compromises associated with a normal fuselage, reducing overall drag. However, many of these features enhance stability, meaning that a flying wing often lacks the stability of a traditional airframe. This makes the aircraft more difficult to fly, especially before the advent of fly-by-wire technology. A flying wing can also struggle with creating space for crew, payload, and defensive armament, as any of these can reduce the aerodynamic advantages than the shape offers.

Nevertheless, engineers (especially in Germany and the Soviet Union) tried repeatedly in the interwar period to develop a viable flying wing, either for transport or for military purposes. While these efforts yielded useful data, they rarely resulted in practical airframes. Near the end of World War II, the German successfully developed a jet fighter flying wing, although it did not enter mass production.

From XB-35 to YB-49

In the early years of World War II, U.S. strategists realized that it might become necessary to bomb Germany directly from the United States, especially if Great Britain left the war. A U.S. Army Air Corps request triggered proposals from a Boeing-Consolidated alliance (eventually Convair) and from Northrop. The former resulted in the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, the latter in the XB-35. The B-36 had a relatively conventional design; it looked more or less like a bigger version of the extant bombers of the time, although it had innovative features. The XB-35, on the other hand, was something new to U.S. military aviation; a flying wing. It was smaller than the B-36, but comparable in many performance features.