Who likes my new Avvie?

Who likes it?


If you need to know, it's the XB-35 bomber.

It's nice. Another warcraft one

From Wikipedia:

The B-35 was the brainchild of Jack Northrop, who made the flying wing the focus of his work during the 1930s. During World War II, Northrop had been commissioned to develop a large wing-only, long range bomber designated XB-35. Northrop advocated the "flying wing" as a means of reducing parasitic drag and eliminating structural weight not directly responsible for producing lift. In theory, the B-35 could carry a greater payload faster, farther, and cheaper than a conventional bomber. On 11 April 1941, the United States Army Air Corps sent out a request for a bomber that could carry 10,000 lb of bombs to a round-trip mission of 10,000 miles. Requested performance was a maximum speed of 450 mph, cruise speed of 275 mph, and service ceiling of 45,000 ft. This aircraft would be able to bomb Nazi-occupied Europe in the event that Britain fell. This proposal was originally submitted to Boeing and Consolidated Aircraft Company, and led to the Convair B-36. In May, the contract was also extended to include Northrop, inviting them to submit a design along the lines they were already exploring.

Since the radical design would require a significant amount of engineering work in untested waters, the first orders placed were actually for a one-third scale version of the XB-35 dubbed the Northrop N-9M. This plane would be used to gather data on the flying wing design, which would be used in designing the XB-35. In early 1942, design work on the XB-35 itself began in earnest. Unlike conventional aircraft, flying wings cannot use a rudder for lateral control, so a set of butterfly-like, double split flaps on the trailing edge of the wingtips were used. When aileron control was input, they were deflected up or down as a single unit, just like an aileron. When rudder input was made, the two surfaces on one side opened, top and bottom, creating drag, and yawing the aircraft. By applying input to both rudder pedals, both sets of surfaces were deployed creating drag so that the airspeed or the glide angle could be manipulated.

The Army Air Force had originally ordered 200 production model B-35s. Since Northrop's facilities were not up to the task of producing them, the Glenn L. Martin Company agreed to undertake mass production. This proved irrelevant when the aircraft proved to be riddled with design flaws. Even disregarding these, so many of Martin's engineers had been drafted by 1944 that Martin pushed the first delivery date back to 1947. Seeing that it would almost certainly never be ready in time for the war, the Army Air Force cancelled the production contract, though the Air Technical Services Command continued to run the program for research purposes.

The obvious setbacks began when the testing of the N-9M showed that the range of the B-35 would probably be 1,600 miles less than the 10,000 miles requested by the Army Air Force. The estimated maximum speed was also less than originally expected. The actual flight of the plane made matters worse. The contra-rotating props caused constant gearbox malfunctions and reduced the effectiveness of propeller control. After only 19 flights, Northrop grounded the first XB-35; the second aircraft was grounded after eight test flights. During this time, the contra-rotating propellers were removed and replaced with single ones. In addition to having vibration problems, the new single props greatly reduced the aircraft's performance. Furthermore, the intricate exhaust system was turning into a fiasco to maintain. After only two years of use, the engines already showed signs of metal fatigue.

In the end, the program was doomed due to its endless technical difficulties, the obsolescence of its reciprocating engines, and the fact that the program was far behind schedule and over budget. One large contributor to the program's failure was the tendency of Northrop to become engaged in many experimental programs, which spread a small engineering staff far too wide.

There are long-standing conspiracy theories about the cancellation of the program. Specifically, there is a long-standing accusation that Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington attempted to coerce Jack Northrop to merge his company with the Atlas Corporation controlled Convair. When Northrop refused, Symington supposedly arranged to cancel the B-35 and B-49 program. Critics of these allegations note that the B-35 and B-49 designs had well-documented performance and design problems, and were incapable of carrying nuclear weapons; moreover, the Convair B-36 needed more money.[2] Furthermore, early the same year the B-49 was cancelled, Northrop received a production contract for the F-89 Scorpion.[3][4][5]

At that time, it appeared the B-36 program might be cancelled as well as the B-35. The Air Force desired to have a production program for the Fort Worth factory. Given Northrop's insufficient production capacity, this is probably the source of the 'conspiracy.'

You didn't even edit the link numbers!

Why would I read that when you obviously haven't read through your post.

No, but when I copy and paste something from wikipedia, I edit it and I remove links and link numbers.