"The first Ho IX V1, an unpowered glider, flew on 1 March 1944. Flight results were very favorable, but there was a landing accident when the pilot attempted to land without first retracting an instrument-carrying pole extending from the aircraft. The design was taken from the Horten brothers and given to Gothaer Waggonfabrik. The Gotha team made some changes: They added a simple ejection seat, dramatically changed the undercarriage to enable a higher gross weight, changed the jet engine inlets, and added a system to carry cold air to cool the jet engine's outer casing, as the wing was made of wood.[1]
All subsequent flights and development were done by Gotha. By this time, the Horton brothers were working on the Amerika Bomber.[3]
The Horten Ho IX V1 was followed in December 1944 by the Junkers Jumo 004-powered Ho IX V2; the BMW 003 engine was preferred but unavailable at the time. Göring believed in the design and ordered a production series of 40 aircraft at Gotha with the RLM designation Ho 229 before it had taken to the air under jet power. The program was undeterred when the sole Ho IX V2 crashed after an engine caught fire on 18 February 1945 after only two hours of flying time. An order was put in for further prototypes and 20 pre-production aircraft. On 12 March 1945, the Ho 229 was included in the Jäger-Notprogramm for accelerated production of inexpensive "wonder weapons."
During the final stages of the war, the U.S. military initiated Operation Paperclip, which was an effort by the various intelligence agencies to capture advanced German weapons research, and to deny that research to advancing Soviet troops. A Horten glider and the Ho 229 V3, which was undergoing final assembly, were secured and sent to Northrop Corporation in the United States for evaluation. Northrop was chosen because of their experience with flying wings, inspired by the Horten brothers' pre-war record setting glider. Jack Northrop had been building flying wings since the N-1M in 1939."
I stand corrected.Sort of.The sole copy flew for two hours and then crashed.I suppose it flew in a "Spruce Goose" sorta way.The rest were "towed glider" flights.
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