I saw parts of this truly disappointing mess. So they wound up putting it on a stand to analyze the Radar Cross Section. What wasn't clear (or perhaps I missed it) was how did the radar equipment used compare to the actual Chain Home equipment. My impression was they used modern power levels and frequencies, which to me, seems not viable "test".
by the time this was built, chain home was gone. some towers still remained but don't forget, ww2 was the wizard war, so by 1944, radar was far beyond it. all the variety was there, surface to air, air to water, air to air...... i suspect it would have been harder to see than a mosquito, those gave the germans fits until very late.
bad assumption about tv....keerful.
I got the impression they knew what they were doing and that their collective smarts on the subject exceeds ours.
WmB
i suppose tv had to get one right. wonder who screwed up?
No, actually, it's an extremely safe assumption that the stealth folks at Northrop-Grumman know more about the subject than all of us put together.
As for the original question on the test simulation, someone has wiki'd the project:
*****************************************With testing complete, the reproduction was donated by Northrop-Grumman to the San Diego Air and Space Museum, while the TV special aired on June 28,
2009 on the National Geographic Channel.******************************************
WmB
eyeball wrote: : : I still don't understand what was the point of the build. : Keeping folks occupied, rather than laying them off with pay, I guess. : : Non-matching materials, $2500-a-gallon paint, all the seams filled and : sanded in a way that never woulda happened on a forest assembly : line.. : Explain why using $2500/gal. paint made more sense than bolting a couple of sheets of aluminum in place of the paint, please? Oh, we already have the paint on hand, perhaps? : : that didn't strike me as a scientific exploration of the : stealth properties of the real thing. : Did Horton use nails to keep the plywood in place? : : Did our tax money pay Northrop to build this giant movie prop? : Apparently. On the other hand, we got to see the inside of a top secret hanger! Damn, but that made it all worth while!
On the whole, it was the piece of dross that I expected the show to be. No attempt was made to explain why the proto- type crashed when it lost an engine, or how the Germans were going to solve the minor issue of the plywood delaminating a' la the Moskito. No attempt was made to compare the Ho229 to other plywood aircraft, like the Mosquito, or any of Jack Northrup's designs.
And I had to love the farcical depiction of the Ho18 being accompanied by the Ho229's as they dropped nukes on New York and DC. All because the Dutch Uncle said that in 1946, the Germans would have a new-cooler weapon.
Almost as likely as the Ho229 attacking the Chain-Home radar station on the coast, with narry a flak gun in sight.
Bruce
is there a historian in the house? (name that joke!)
Wish they would have spent more bucks and built a Northrop XP-79 ramfighter and compared the two.
Would have been nice and mentioned that the Brits had Chain Home Low going at that time, plus a whole lot of US Army AAA units potting buzz bombs with the SCR-584
According to my father, it was far easier to locate a V-1 than it was to track a Me 262. Perhaps sound location tied into it somehow. V-1s were not stealthy.
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
Evidently they weren't very fast either, if you could run one down with a Spit or a Typhoon/Tempest.
No, they weren't that fast, 350mph or so.
Problem was, that was at 2-3000 feet.
P-51Ds couldn't catch them.They were rated over 400mph, but not down on the deck, but at 25k+. P-47Ms could, but had bad engine troubles. Had Corsairs been around, they would have worked too, but thats Navy
Enter Griffon powered clipped wing Spits and Sabre powered Tempests, versions that did better at low altitudes, but not up high
** mike **
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Thx for the info...either that wasn't noted during the broadcast, or (far more likely) I missed the statement of such.
As far as trusting the abilities of the Northrop engineers, I subscribe to the "trust but verify" school of thought.
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