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The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft

(David Myhra)

Lavishly illustrated history of the design genius, his brother, and the games they played with the Third Reich. Available at Historic Aviation

The Horten Brothers and Their All-Wing Aircraft

If its fuselage, tail, and engine nacelles contribute nothing to an aircraft's lift, why not get rid of them?

Designers pursued the all-wing dream from the first decade of powered flight, notably Jack Northrop in the U.S. and the Horten brothers in Germany. Reimar and Walter Horten were a step ahead, testing an all-wing sailplane in 1933, a twin-engined pusher in 1937, and a turbojet fighter-bomber in 1944. When the war ended, Reimar was working on a six-engine Amerika bomber to carry a hypothetical atomic bomb to New York City.

Postwar, the western Allies dismissed their work, though the British toyed with a transport version of the Amerika bomber. Walter stayed in Germany and eventually rejoined the Luftwaffe; Reimar went to Argentina and worked for the Peron government. Meanwhile, Jack Northrop was still trying to build a successful all-wing turbojet bomber in the 1950s. That he never hired the Hortens, as German engineers were recruited for the U.S. space program, may been one of history's great missed opportunities.

In the end, all that came from their work was a dozen aircraft whose beauty still astonishes. This is especially true of the Ho 229 fighter-bomber, a batlike warplane that wouldn't look out of place at a 21st-century air show--or combat airfield.

David Myhra wrote his book several years ago, while both Hortens were alive, and he approached it as their friendly ghost, rather than a dispassionate historian. The writing is sometimes clumsy and typographical errors are everywhere, including the first flight of the Ho 1 sailplane--perhaps the most important fact in the book--which is dated a year after it happened. There are 700 photos, sometimes duplicative but always fascinating. (My favorite shows the Horten dining room in Bonn, a wing entering its doorway and extending across the table, which is set for dinner.) An appendix provides three-views of 60 design variations, but without the dates and dimensions that would allow the reader to compare one with another, or with the contemporaneous designs of Jack Northrop.

All praise to David Myhra for writing this book, and to Schiffer for publishing it. What a pity they didn't hire a good editor while they were at it.