Aviation Naval Warfare Land Systems Small Arms Space By Flag By Year By Tag

Northrop XB-35 / YB-35

History of Northrop XB-35 / YB-35

The concept of the flying-wing bomber had occupied aeronautical engineers for some time before the advent of World War II (1939-1945). The most famous of these war models is the German Horten Ho 229 (detailed elsewhere on this page), which used an early form of camouflage and was powered by a jet engine. However, after its maiden flight on March 1, 1944, only three of the model were completed.

Remains of the project fell into American hands shortly after the war and ended up in a museum.

Northrop founder Jack Northrop toyed with the flying wing concept in the 1930s and 1940s, eventually producing the N-1M and N-9M designs while smashing the proposed XP-79. All of this work paved the way for a bigger future, the XB-35/YB-35 flying-wing strategic bomber.

The U.S. Air Force ordered 13 pre-production vehicles on September 30, 1943, code-named YB-35.

The first flight of the XB-35 was on June 25, 1946, but by then World War II had ended with the fall of Germany in May 1945 and the collapse of the Japanese Empire in August. Nonetheless, the Northrop product survived heavy losses in post-war military programs and continued its development phase.

During early testing, problems with the engines (supplied directly by the USAF) and propellers became a sticking point between the USAF, Northrop, engine maker Pratt & Whitney, and propeller maker Hamilton Standard - all of which Blame each other.

The planned delays meant that the first YB-35 did not make its maiden flight until May 15, 1948, and only one YB-35 took off. Despite its reduced performance compared to its contemporaries, interest in the flying-wing bomber waned and the example was shelved until scrapped in July 1949, culminating in an incomplete addition in August of the same year. The YB-35 fuselage.

The rest of the fuselage is done to varying degrees, mainly due to the different engine coordination. The two XB-35 prototypes themselves were scrapped in August 1949.

The XB-35 was used as a prototype, while the YB-35 was a development vehicle. This led to production-quality airframes using the "B-35" designation, and the USAF envisioned a fleet of 200 of these aircraft, but the production line was never ready for combat in time.

The Glenn L. Martin Company assisted Northrop in production during the war, but this arrangement proved to be a contentious issue in the history of the XB-35 - the B-35 was not fully completed until 1947.

As the war drew to a close, the USAF inevitably began to turn its interest in jets and asked Northrop to install two YB-35s into YB-49s with 8 x Allison J35 turbojets on the bomber. The move reduced operating range by as much as 50 percent, but improved performanceespecially top speed, which increased to 520 mph and operating altitude to 40,000 feet.

Three YB-35 aircraft were converted to YB-49 standard, and the second crashed on June 5, 1948, killing its crew.

The YRB-49A was built from the existing YB-35 with only 6 turbojets and was proposed as a long-range reconnaissance platform. The U.S. Air Force ordered 30 prototypes of this type, and one prototype flew a total of 13 times before the U.S. Air Force cancelled its commitment to the aircraft.

The only copy was scrapped in December 1953. Another YB-35 was used in the construction of the EB-35B to evaluate the new in-house T37 "Turbodyne" turboprop driving the counter-rotating propeller. This example is not continued.

The end of the war, industrial and government policies, and engineering challenges all contributed to the demise of the B-35 and delayed the deployment of the front-line flying-wing bomber for decades. Jack Northrop's flying-wing bomber dream finally came true in 1997 with the B-2 Spirit.

Northrop saw the development of this invention before his death in 1981 - technology finally turned the flying wing concept into a viable military platform, the B-2 series in the late 1990s and subsequent decades of conflict achieved its own success.

Official performance specifications for the eight-star YB-35 include a top speed of 393 mph, a range of up to 8,150 miles, and a service ceiling of up to 39,700 feet. The proposed weapon is a 20 x .50 caliber (12.7 mm) Browning M3 heavy machine gun with an estimated internal bomb load of 51,070.

The crew consisted of nine people, including two pilots, a bombardier, a navigator, a flight engineer, a radio operator and three full-time gunners.

The XB-35/YB-35 program officially ended in 1949.