Northrop YB-49: "The Story of the Flying Wing" 1949 Northrop Aviation

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Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Northrop YB-49 was a prototype jet-powered heavy bomber developed by Northrop Corporation shortly after World War II for service with the U.S. Air Force. The YB-49 featured a flying wing design and was a turbojet-powered development of the earlier, piston-engined Northrop XB-35 and YB-35. The two YB-49s actually built were both converted YB-35 test aircraft.

The YB-49 never entered production, being passed over in favor of the more conventional Convair B-36 piston-driven design. Design work performed in the development of the YB-35 and YB-49 nonetheless proved to be valuable to Northrop decades later in the eventual development of the B-2 stealth bomber, which entered service in the early 1990s...

With the XB-35 program seriously behind schedule by 1944, and the end of piston-engined combat aircraft in sight, the production contract for this propeller-driven type was cancelled in May of that year. Nevertheless, the Flying Wing design was still sufficiently interesting to the Air Force that work was continued on testing a single YB-35A production aircraft.

Among the aircraft later completed were two airframes that the Air Force ordered be fitted with jet propulsion and designated as YB-49s. The first of these new YB-49 jet-powered aircraft flew on 22 October 1947 (from Northrop airfield in Hawthorne, CA) and immediately proved more promising than its piston engined counterpart. The YB-49 set an unofficial endurance record of staying continually above 40,000 ft (12,200 m) for 6.5 hours.

The second YB-49 was lost on 5 June 1948, killing its pilot, Major Daniel Forbes (for whom Forbes Air Force Base was named), co-pilot Captain Glen Edwards (for whom Edwards Air Force Base is named), and three other crew members...

During flight tests in the 1940s, it was noticed that the aircraft had a small radar cross-section, due to its flying wing design. Decades later, this stealthy detail would prove crucial to the design of Northrop-Grumman's advanced, all-wing B-2 bomber.

On 9 February 1949, the first YB-49 flew from Muroc Air Force Base in California to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., in 4 hours 25 minutes, after which President Truman ordered a flyby of Pennsylvania Avenue at rooftop level. The return flight from Andrews was marred when four of the eight engines had to be shut down due to oil starvation. Inspection after a successful emergency landing at Winslow Airport, Arizona, revealed no oil had been replaced in these engines at Wright after the Muroc-to-Andrews leg, raising a suspicion of industrial sabotage...

...in September 1948, the Air Force ordered the type into full production as the RB-49A reconnaissance aircraft...

During early 1950, the remaining YB-35Bs airframes being converted to YRB-49As were ordered scrapped. Flight testing of the sole remaining YB-49 prototype ended 14 March 1950. On 15 March 1950, that program was canceled, and coincidentally, that last YB-49 prototype suffered a high-speed taxiing accident and... was totally destroyed in the ensuing fire.

Only two months later, all Flying Wing contracts were canceled abruptly without explanation by order of Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force. Shortly thereafter, also without explanation, Symington turned down a request from the Smithsonian for the Air Force to donate one of these big wings to its collection of pioneering Northrop aircraft.

All remaining Flying Wing bomber airframes, except for the sole YRB-49A reconnaissance version, were ordered chopped up by Symington, the materials smelted down using portable smelters brought to Northrop's facility, in plain sight of its employees...