What if the Northrop B-49 entered operational service.

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What if the US Air Force decided to adopt the Northrop B-49 Flying Wing as it's first Intercontinental Strategic Bomber instead of the more conventional Convair B-36 Peacemaker.
 
There's going to be more accidents. Those flying wings really do need computerized controls, due to inherent instability. Might make the USSR do the same thing, and that might be interesting
 
The B-49 IIRC was an absolute horror to fly and flying wings only really became viable with fly by wire and much more advanced tech. Plus the 49 will have the same problems as overheating as the 36 with its pusher engines. Not sure on the performance difference between the two.
 
The B-49 IIRC was an absolute horror to fly and flying wings only really became viable with fly by wire and much more advanced tech. Plus the 49 will have the same problems as overheating as the 36 with its pusher engines. Not sure on the performance difference between the two.

The B-49 was jet powered. It was the earlier version of it, the B-35 that you're thinking of. And the B-35's radial engines had cooling fans. Engine overheating was not one of the B-35s or B-49s myriad problems.
 
Not sure on the performance difference between the two.

B-36: Max speed 436 mph, cruise speed 230 mph, combat radius about 4000 miles, bomb load 86000 pounds.

B-49: Max speed about 500mph, cruise speed 365 mph, combat radius 1600 miles with a 10,0000 pound bomb load

They aren't really comparable
 
There's going to be more accidents. Those flying wings really do need computerized controls, due to inherent instability. Might make the USSR do the same thing, and that might be interesting

The B-35 piston engined flying wing was according to an account I read gained some inherent stability thanks to the gyroscopic effect that the propellors provided. It still had problems however. I think the flying wing design could have been made to work with the technology of the day. Might have required a slightly modified design than a pure flying wing. Improved performance to the piston engined bombers of the early 1940s there would have been no place for them once jet engines became available. Until the development of fly-by-wire and computer augmented stability.
 
At work.

The prop driven flying wing suffered from poor relyability of its engines. I seem to remeber mention of vibration of the extension shafts(?).

The design suffered when jet turbines were descided on well into development.

As in piston powered air frames were already being built.

For what ever reason instead of 'Podding' the turbines above or below the wing/body. I can only guess that they were simply mounted where the piston engine blocks had been.

This then led to inlet and exhaust ductwork now having to be built into areas that had previously been fuel tankage and bomb bay.

Of note: The 'Original' landing gear was unchanged for the prototype jet powered machine. This created problems given higher take off and landing speeds between the new installed turbine and former planned for cylinder power plant flight speeds.

Northrop's early designs seemed to have all been 'Flat', with various methods being employed to create stability.

The Horten bros created a stable (Some 'Dutch roll' has been mentioned in some sources) via subtle curving of the entire wing planform.
 

thorr97

Banned
The main problem was that the B-35's wing was designed for much lower airspeeds than what jets could push the thing to. And as the primary advantage of jet power for aircraft then was the higher speeds they availed, that meant a jet engined B-35/ B-49 was inherently limited. Solving that would've meant a substantial redesign of the entire aircraft to come up with a faster wing.

Then there's the stability problem. Jack Northrop claimed he had fixes in the works that'd have solved those problems. But, again, it was a time and money thing that was competing against Convair and Boeing who were offering more conventional designs that had far less risk, far more growth potential, and were also being capable of being manufactured in far, far greater numbers than Northrop could dream of.

That last point is an oft overlooked one when it comes to all this. The Air Force was looking at having to fight World War Three against the Soviets in the very near term and they needed to be able to produce heavy aircraft in the same numbers as in WWII. That is, by the tens of thousands.

Northrop simply didn't have the physical plant nor the corporate expertise to be able to handle such a production volume. Yes, they could've come up with it. Eventually. But that was more time & money again and the Air Force didn't figure the advantages of the Flying Wing warrented expending it.

Oh, and the airframe itself would've had a hard time fitting the huge size of the early nukes as well.
 
The main problem was that the B-35's wing was designed for much lower airspeeds than what jets could push the thing to. And as the primary advantage of jet power for aircraft then was the higher speeds they availed, that meant a jet engined B-35/ B-49 was inherently limited. Solving that would've meant a substantial redesign of the entire aircraft to come up with a faster wing.

Then there's the stability problem. Jack Northrop claimed he had fixes in the works that'd have solved those problems. But, again, it was a time and money thing that was competing against Convair and Boeing who were offering more conventional designs that had far less risk, far more growth potential, and were also being capable of being manufactured in far, far greater numbers than Northrop could dream of.

That last point is an oft overlooked one when it comes to all this. The Air Force was looking at having to fight World War Three against the Soviets in the very near term and they needed to be able to produce heavy aircraft in the same numbers as in WWII. That is, by the tens of thousands.

Northrop simply didn't have the physical plant nor the corporate expertise to be able to handle such a production volume. Yes, they could've come up with it. Eventually. But that was more time & money again and the Air Force didn't figure the advantages of the Flying Wing warrented expending it.

Oh, and the airframe itself would've had a hard time fitting the huge size of the early nukes as well.

It also could not carry Little Boy or Fat Man bombs iirc
 
Only the B36 bomber could carry and drop the huge primitive early H bombs. As the big city buster H bombs got smaller and smaller then the later B52 could carry them.
 
Only the B36 bomber could carry and drop the huge primitive early H bombs. As the big city buster H bombs got smaller and smaller then the later B52 could carry them.
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Bombs so big not even the B-52 could hold them, the Mk-17 15MT bomb, 24 feet long and 21 tons
 
Not to hijack the thread, but what was expected survivability of the B-36? Seems like it would be easy pickings for Soviet fighters. Especially when they stripped off the defensive guns.

Ric350
 
S. Marlowski wrote:
What if the US Air Force decided to adopt the Northrop B-49 Flying Wing as its first Intercontinental Strategic Bomber instead of the more conventional Convair B-36 Peacemaker.

As noted the real ‘decision’ would have been between the XB-35 and XB-36 prototypes and frankly the XB-35 couldn’t carry an atom bomb, (neither could the XB-49) so that was the main reason they weren’t continued.

As for ‘overheating’ the B-36 had issues with that as well since it also had pusher props. Any interrupt of the oil flow, (such as often happened with broken or leaking oil and/or coolant lines) and you risked an engine fire if you didn’t shut down immediately.

The propellers actually did help stabilize the aircraft and which the ‘air separators’ of the YB-49 were supposed to emulate. Quite obviously it didn’t work and though other designs were considered the “flying wing” was in fact known to be unstable and Northrup was well aware of this but Jack Northrup refused to consider any of the standard ‘fixes’ such as boomed tail surfaces or box-fins. (For arguably good reasons as they would have reduced the performance levels of the aircraft

Performance wise the XB-35 was comparable with the XB-36 and YB-49:

B-36: Max speed 436 mph, cruise speed 230 mph, combat radius about 4000 miles, bomb load 86000 pounds. (Actually this is the stats for the ‘final’ model of the B-36 which not only had four (4) turbojet engines in addition to the standard 6 P&W Wasp Majors but was lightened and had its defense armaments removed with only a single tail cannon just FYI)

The B-36 of the proper “time” had the following stats:
XB-36: Max speed: 346mph, cruise speed 216mph, combat radius 9500miles bomb load of 77,784lbs.
B-35: Max speed: 393mph, cruise speed 183mph, combat radius 8150 miles, bomb load 51,000lbs
B-49: Max speed about 500mph, cruise speed 365 mph, combat radius 1600 miles with a 16,0000 pound bomb load (corrected up from 10,000lb)

Note also those ‘combat radius’ figures are all with “10,000lbs” of bombs as the max loads had radically shorter ranges. (The XB-36 had a max range possible with a ‘full’ load of a little over 3800 miles)

Again though the bomb bays of the XB-35/49 were not capable of handling the large atomic bombs of the day whereas the XB-36 could and keep in mind the XB-35/49 bomb bays weren’t on the ‘center-line’ of the aircraft but outboard of the crew area which means attempting to expand them is going to entail some radical aerodynamic changes as well as structural changes. In the end the XB-35/49 simply didn’t have the needed performance and while the ‘issues’ could have been addressed to make the XB-35/49 ‘work’ as a bomber (a mechanical ‘stabilizer’ had been worked on but needed more development) the overall performance just wasn’t there.

Much as I love the design the facts pretty much speak for themselves.

Randy
 
Not to hijack the thread, but what was expected survivability of the B-36? Seems like it would be easy pickings for Soviet fighters. Especially when they stripped off the defensive guns.

In SAC/ADC flyoffs, the early Jets had trouble getting a firing solution. At high altitudes, stall speed increases, most famously in the form of the U-2, where top speed and stalling speed were a few knots apart.

B-36 had enough lift and stability(from the props and generous tail), it could out-maneuver the interceptors at high altitudes

One of the reason why ADC gave up on guns, and went unguided FFARs and IR and Radar Falcons
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Wanted to be sure of getting that Soviet Bomber,
along with the ultimate unjammable rocket, the AIR-2 Genie
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1.5kt of solid rocket fun. No guidance, just the predicting gunsight
 
next flight stability problems, technical difficulties and being behind schedule and over budget.
had YB-35/YB-49 another bigger problem: Its Bomb bays
it carry 16,000 lb (7,260 kg) of bombs in several small Bomb bays next to Engines
they could not fit the monster size Mk-17 15MT bomb or standard Nuke
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In Harsh Contrast to the B-36. only being behind schedule for WW2, was perfect for Role to carry big bombs or nukes all over world if needed in 1950s
so Northrop propose the RB-49A reconnaissance aircraft based on YB-35 but with jet engines
But competition building a better Bomber and reconnaissance Jet aircraft that became iconic
the Boeing B-47 Stratojet
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