Reimar Horten continued to refine his line of all-wing sailplanes by building at least 18 examples of the Horten III beginning in 1938. Horten fitted this example, called the Horten III f, with a flat-prone couch for the pilot and he probably assigned Werk Nr. 32 to the sailplane when he finished it in 1944 at Göttingen. This Horten III f, the Horten VI V2, and the Wright brothers 1903 Flyer are the only airplanes in NASM collections configured for prone pilotage. To mount the aircraft, a pilot stretched flat on his stomach, bent slightly at the waist and knees, and rested his feet on rudder pedals hinged above his heels. A padded chin rest supported his head which projected into the leading edge of the wing. Clear plastic panels formed the leading edge for several feet above, below, and to either side of the pilot. Visibility was excellent and drag greatly reduced.
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File:Horten brothers.jpg
Walter Horten (born 13 November 1913 in Bonn; died 9 December 1998 in Baden-Baden, Germany) and Reimar Horten (born 12 March 1915 in Bonn; died 14 March 1994 in Villa General Belgrano, Argentina), sometimes credited as the Horten Brothers, were German aircraft pilots. Walter was a fighter pilot on the Western Front, flying a Bf 109 for Jagdgeschwader 26 in the first six months of World War II; he eventually became the unit's technical officer. Reimar was also trained as a Me 109 pilot; however, later in August 1940, he was transferred to the glider pilot school in Braunschweig. He earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Gottingen, having resumed his studies in 1946 with help from Ludwig Prandtl. The Hortens designed the world's first jet-powered flying wing, the Horten Ho 229.
Biography[]
Early lives[]
Between the World Wars, the Treaty of Versailles limited the construction of German military airplanes. In response, German military f
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The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft
by David Myhra
World War Two left the world with a number of very technologically advanced German twin-jet aircraft designs. Both the Messerschmitt ME 262 twin-jet fighter and the Arado Ar 234 high-altitude reconnaissance jet that regularly photographed England from above, are interesting examples of the successful grafting of the then–new jet engine technology onto basically traditional airframe designs. Even more interesting, however, was the German application of jet engines with a radically new and equally technologically innovative airframe: the flying wing, a tailless, all-wing, low-drag, high-efficiency airfoil. The result was the almost completely forgotten, and frighteningly futuristic-looking 1944–1945 Horten Ho 9 V2-B, and Ho 229 V3 all-wing fighters.
This well-designed and graphically interesting hardcover book (even has nicely marbled endpapers!) relates in depth the story of two brothers, Walter and Reimar, who legal