Northrop YB-49 ...

[wendovertom]

Symington knew he was going to Convair before he left the AF Secretary position. He wanted Northrop to merge because Symington was convinced it was the better bomber and wanted Convair to have it. Northrop told him "no way" and then Symington did his corrupt -vindictive scrapping of all the vestiges of Northrop's work. Northrop never opened his mouth about it until 1978. Ironically, the Air Force did come around to the conclusion it was the better bomber- perhaps a more modern version was safer and fly by wire didn't really exist in 1949. Jack told me this (YB 49) "the plane was never designed for jet engines but it was now what the Air Force wanted and so we made it work". The propellers had some vibration issues and he still felt it was the more long range bomber that the Air Force needed, but the jet age called for a jet. The Air Force unveiled a painting of the new Northrop flying Wing B-2 at Northrop University to show Jack that his dream will become a reality. I was his neighbor and his grand daughter Janet was my best friend. I Elder sat many hours with Jack to make sure he didn't fall down. Planes were always part of the discussion, the politics he avoided. He hated the business side of planes. Loved the creation part.

Really interesting connection Adam.
I recall a show (I think it was 60 minutes, or something of the like) where it was described that Jack was given a one time special security clearance so that he could be shown the B2 then under development.
Now that I think about it, he probably wouldn't have been able to talk about it.
A pretty cool gesture of respect.

One of the co-designers of the B-2 tells about the meeting in film "The Wing Will Fly". They showed Jack Northrup a model of the B-2 and he said, "Now I know why God has kept me alive all these years"

Tom P.

[DH82EH]

That must have been what I had seen. I was very impressed by the respect shown to Jack.
Thanks for that Tom.

Andy

[bdk]

Don't get the airsickness comment, my eyes are usually shut when I'm on an airliner or I'm staring at a TV screen.

As far as CG, yes a flying wing would be more sensitive, but you have a limited longitudinal arm in which to place your payload. You can't carry stuff in front of or behind the wing like you can on a conventional aircraft. MD-11s have fuel tanks in the horizontal stabilizer and are able to overcome that.

Without stabilizers, flying wings have a tendency to "hunt" in pitch and yaw. That is what made them sub-par bombing platforms. Just a few years later, autopilots were developed to the point that this would not have been an issue. The aircraft was just a bit ahead of its time.

The other drawback of a flying wing is that when you pitch the nose up to flare, the elevons are are reducing the camber of the airfoil which reduces the coefficient of lift just when you want it most. You therefore need more wing area to compensate, but since the entire aircraft is a wing and well streamlined, that isn't a huge disadvantage.

I'm curious how the projected blended wing airliners concept will pan out. Probably efficient but a lot of air sickness without outside visual clues.

Apologies for moving farther off-topic, but the big challenge for flying wings is pitch stability. One of the reasons conventional airliners have long fuselages is to put the empennage way back there so a little elevator or trim tab movement will have a big impact. With flying wings, that moment arm is much smaller and requires a lot more trim surface or control surface movement to achieve the same amount of pitch trim. This is important both from a CG perspective where you want a wide allowable CG range and from the ability to trim the aircraft to a certain speed.

So, if the BWB aircraft is relatively short nose to tail, it'll suffer the same compromises as flying wings, planks, and the like.