The XB-35 flying wing could have only existed thanks to one man, Jack Northrop, a brilliant engineer who realized that aircraft design had gone in the wrong direction. The sole purpose of a plane is to fly, and thus, all these extra areas like fulsage, tail and more don’t really contribute to its main objective of generating lift.

So why not make a plane that was just the wing?

The XB-35 flying wing would have a total length of 53 feet (16.18m) and a wing span of 172 feet (52 meters). As the whole aircraft was a wing, it would have a huge wing area of 4,000 square feet, 370 meters squared, giving it an aspect ratio of 7.4 – nearly the same wing area as a beoing triple 7-300, a plane that easily dwafs this in size. the aircraft also had an impressivly small radar cross section – which would be very useful for stealth operations, which i’ll get to later.

Inside it had very much the traditional cabin you would find on a normal plane, with even a tail cone protruding from the back with a little window. this would act as a remote sighting station, and a viewport for the tail gunner. In the middle of the cabin was a crew rest area with bunk beds for the long missions.

For the mission, the aircraft would have a crew of nine – a pilot captian, copilot, bombardier, navigator, engineer, radio operator and of course, three gunners to operate the twenty machine guns located in six nests around the fuslage – including a single tail stingers. Speaking of armument, this bomber aircraft could carry up to 52,200 pounds of bombs, or 23,678 kilos of explosives.

With four pusher propellers 15 feet across, 4 and a half meters, the aircraft would have a cruise speed of 240 mph (390 km/h, 210 kn) and a range of (12,100 km, 6,500 nmi) on a single fule tank. It had a goal cruise altitude of 39,700 ft (12,100 m) but that was actually restricted to 20,000 ft (6,096 m) due to APU problems – which i’ll get to in a moment.

Things were looking up, and 200 bombers were ordered by the airforce with the first to enter the war in 1944.

Design took so long that the war came and went, and it finally took to the skies in 1946. While its inital test flights were without incident, it turns out that its propellers hadn’t actually been investigated to see if they worked with the engines.

Because the relations had soured between the airforce and Northrop, the airforce refused to give the team a specail AC electrical alternator for the electrical systems. Thus the plane had to use its own onboard auxiliary power unit, limiting its ability to fly higher than 15,000 feet, or 4,600 meters –

Lastly, in an effort to put Northrop in a hard place, the air force demanded that the aircraft be able to carry the new atomic bomb or they would not buy it. However, it required a small modification of the bays – a plan that the airforce refused.

A solution to all these problems appeared with the arrival of the jet engine.

This new version of the plane, now dubbed the YB-49, would fly much faster and higher than the original, especially with its power supply problems. Initial tests in 1948 with eight jet engines allowed the airframe to reach 40,000 ft (12,000 m) and topped 520 mph (840 km/h), an impressive performance. However, the range was greatly reduced, and no longer could the plane fill the role of the grand-strategic bomber, a mission profile that had now switched to hitting russians factories in the USSR.

Of the 13 orders,, one crashed in 1948 during stall tests killing two famous test pilots, Major Daniel Forbes, of Forbes Air Force base fame, and Captian Glen Ewards, of Edwards Air Force base fame, as well as their three crew members.

The other 11 uncompleted prototypes were converted to other prototypes, such as a spy one called the YRB-49A. 30 had been ordered but cancelled without explanation around the same time.

As different people got promoted or moved around, the project landed on the desk of those unfamiliar with the drama and questioned all the back and forth, crashed tests and odd problems. Was it really worth all this effort?

In 1980, a now aged and wheelchair bound Jack Northrop was taken to the top secret design studio and show the underdevelopment prototype of the B-2 bomber. He recongised the same lines, and the same wing span of the flying wing he had championed nearly 40 years eariler and said “I know why God has kept me alive for the past 25 years.” He would pass only 10 months later.