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YB-49
The Northrop YB-49 was an American prototype jet-powered heavy bomber developed by Northrop Corporation shortly after World War II for service with the United States 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. Design and development 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 des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northrop YB-35
The Northrop YB-35, Northrop designation N-9 or NS-9, were experimental heavy bomber aircraft developed by the Northrop Corporation for the United States Army Air Forces during and shortly after World War II. The airplane used the radical and potentially very efficient flying wing design, in which the tail section and fuselage are eliminated and all payload is carried in a thick wing. Only prototypes and pre-production aircraft were built, although interest remained strong enough to warrant further development of the design as a jet bomber, under the designation Northrop YB-49, YB-49.Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II,'' pp. 93, 95, 103–6, Cypress, CA, 2013. . Design and development The B-35 was the brainchild of John Knudsen Northrop, Jack Northrop, who made the flying wing the focus of his work during the 1930s. In 1941 before the USA entered World War II, Northrop and Consolidated Vultee Corporation had been c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B-2 Bomber
The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying wing with a crew of two, the plane was designed by Northrop, later Northrop Grumman, and produced from 1987 to 2000. The bomber can drop conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration. Development began under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project during the Carter administration, which cancelled the Mach 2-capable B-1A bomber in part because the ATB showed such promise. But development difficulties delayed progress and drove costs up. Ultimately, the program produced 21 B-2s at an average cost of $2.13 billion (in 1997 dollars), inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit
The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying wing with a crew of two, the plane was designed by Northrop, later Northrop Grumman, and produced from 1987 to 2000. The bomber can drop conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty Mk 82 JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged aircraft that can carry large air-to-surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration. Development began under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) project during the Carter administration, which cancelled the Mach 2-capable B-1A bomber in part because the ATB showed such promise. But development difficulties delayed progress and drove costs up. Ultimately, the program produced 21 B-2s at an average cost of $2.13 billion (in 1997 dollars), includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Northrop
John Knudsen Northrop (November 10, 1895 – February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939. His career began in 1916 as a draftsman for Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company (founded 1912). He joined the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1923, where in time he became a project engineer. In 1927 he joined the Lockheed Corporation, where he was a chief engineer on the Lockheed Vega transport. He left in 1929 to found Avion Corporation, which he sold in 1930. Two years later, he founded the Northrop Corporation. This firm became a subsidiary of Douglas Aircraft in 1939, so he co-founded a second company named Northrop. Early life and entering aviation Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1895, Northrop grew up in Santa Barbara, California. In 1916 Northrop's first job in aviation was in working as a draftsman for the Santa Barbara-based Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company. After the outbreak of the First World War, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Cardenas
Robert Leon Cardenas (March 10, 1920 – March 10, 2022) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. Early life He was born in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. When he was five, his family moved to San Diego. He excelled in mathematics and physics in high school. When Cardenas was a teenager, building models and learning about gliders at the Torrey Pines Gliderport first sparked his interest in airplanes.Derek Horne"Brigadier General Robert L. 'Bob' Cardenas" Lycos Network Website. Accessed March 30, 2022. Due to his excellent grades, San Diego State University invited him to enroll. Military service Pre-World War II In 1939, while attending San Diego State, he decided to enlist as a private in the California National Guard. In 1940, Cardenas became an aviation cadet. He graduated, received his pilot wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in July 1941. In 1942, Lt. Cardenas was sent to Twentynine Palms, California, to help establish the Arm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glen Edwards (pilot)
Glen Walter Edwards (March 5, 1916 – June 5, 1948) was a test pilot for the United States Air Force, and is the namesake of Edwards Air Force Base. Early life Edwards was born March 5, 1916, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, where he lived until 1931. At age 13, his parents Claude Gustin Edwards, a real estate salesman, and Mary Elizabeth ( ''née'' Briggeman) Edwards moved the family to California, settling in Lincoln, northeast of Sacramento. He attended Lincoln High School, where he was a member of the Spanish Club and worked on the school newspaper, "El Eco". After graduating from high school in 1936, he attended Placer Junior College in Auburn, California and then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. World War II North Africa and southern Italy After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the Berkeley, Edwards enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces on July 15, 1941, five months before Pearl Harbor, as an aviation cadet. Up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Wing
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blisters, booms, or vertical stabilizers. Similar aircraft designs, that are not technically flying wings, are sometimes casually referred to as such. These types include blended wing body aircraft and lifting body aircraft, which have a fuselage and no definite wings. A pure flying wing is theoretically the lowest drag design configuration for a fixed wing aircraft. However, because it lacks conventional stabilizing surfaces and the associated control surfaces, in its purest form the flying wing suffers from being unstable and difficult to control. The basic flying wing configuration became an object of significant study during the 1920s, often in conjunction with other tailless designs. In the Second World War, both Nazi Germany and the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwards Air Force Base
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is Edwards, California. The base was named after World War II USAAF veteran and test pilot Capt. Glen Edwards in 1950; prior to then the facility was named Muroc Air Force Base. It is the home of the Air Force Test Center, Air Force Test Pilot School, and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. It is the Air Force Materiel Command center for conducting and supporting research and development of flight, as well as testing and evaluating aerospace systems from concept to combat. It also hosts many test activities conducted by America's commercial aerospace industry. Notable occurrences at Edwards include Chuck Yeager's flight that broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, test flights of the North American X-15, the first landings of the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northrop Corporation
Northrop Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman. The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II,'' pp. 93-106, Cypress, CA, 2013. . History Jack Northrop founded 3 companies using his name. The first was the Avion Corporation in 1928, which was absorbed in 1929 by the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation as a subsidiary named "Northrop Aircraft Corporation" (and later became part of Boeing). The parent company moved its operations to Kansas in 1931, and so Jack, along with Donald Douglas, established a "Northrop Corporation" located in El Segundo, California, which produced several successful designs, including the Northrop Gamma and Northrop Delta. However, labor difficulties led to the dissolution of the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrews Air Force Base
Andrews Air Force Base (Andrews AFB, AAFB) is the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force. In 2009, Andrews Air Force Base merged with Naval Air Facility Washington to form Joint Base Andrews. Andrews, located near Morningside, Maryland in suburban Washington, D.C., is the home base of two Boeing VC-25A aircraft with the call sign Air Force One when the president is on board, that serve the President of the United States, and the President is typically flown in and out of Andrews when travelling from Washington, D.C. by plane. The host unit at Andrews is the 316th Wing, assigned to the Air Force District of Washington. It is responsible for maintaining emergency reaction rotary-wing airlift and other National Capital Region contingency response capabilities critical to national security and for organizing, training, equipping and deploying combat-ready forces for Air and Space Expeditionary Forces (AEFs). The 316 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell X-1
The Bell X-1 (Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics– U.S. Army Air Forces–U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded in 1954. The X-1 aircraft #46-062, nicknamed ''Glamorous Glennis'' and piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes (and non-rocket planes) designed for testing new technologies. Design and development Parallel development In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first aircraft capable of brea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
