The Northrop N-1 (''Northrop Model 1'') was a projected

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, blis ...

medium bomber A medium bomber is a military bomber Fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft designed to operate with medium-sized Aerial bomb, bombloads over medium Range (aeronautics), range distances; the name serves to distinguish this type from larger heavy bombe ...

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 Com ...

Design and development

The N-1 was a development of an earlier flying wing bomber concept from 1937, when Jack Northrop worked for

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

El Segundo, California El Segundo ( , ; ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is part of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments. The population was 16,731 as of th ...

. This concept featured a fuselage that protruded forward of the leading edge of the wing, two pusher propellers, and vertical stabilizers on the tips of the wings. Its engines were never specified, but its defensive armament was to consist of a nose and tail turrets. A

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

model of the concept was built and tested, but the project was abandoned shortly after Northrop left Douglas. Northrop continued work on the bomber after he formed his own company,

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 Spiri ...

, in 1939. In response to the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

' XC-219 specification, which called for a new high-altitude medium bomber, Northrop made several major changes to the design and gave it the model number N-1. The wing was now thicker, and the separate fuselage structure was dispensed in favor of incorporating the crew compartments into the airfoil. The vertical stabilizers were replaced with drooped wingtips with an anhedral of 35 degrees, which were apparently found to stabilize

paper planes A paper plane (also known as a paper airplane in American English or paper aeroplane in British English) is a toy aircraft, usually a glider made out of single folded sheet of paper or paperboard. A simple nose-heavy paper plane, thrown like ...

during tests conducted by Jack Northrop, his son John, and

Moye Stephens Moye Wicks Stephens (February 21, 1906 – 1995) was an American aviator and businessman. He was a pioneer in aviation, circumnavigating the globe with adventure writer Richard Halliburton in 1931, and co-founding Northrop Aircraft, Inc. Family ...

on a stormy weekend. Details of the design varied greatly as the aircraft evolved, with an early version featuring a large greenhouse

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

and a single vertical stabilizer under the fuselage to act as a propeller guard. There were originally planned to be seven crew, later reduced to four, including two gunners manning forward-firing guns in the nose. Later, the stabilizer was deleted, with the anhedral of the wingtips increased to 40 degrees to make up for it, and a retractable tail wheel was added as a propeller guard instead. The greenhouse canopy was replaced with a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; so ...

protruding from the top of the wing. Defensive armament was to consist of four remotely operated turrets; one on the top and one on the underside of each wing. The proposed powerplant of the N-1 was originally a pair of

Pratt & Whitney X-1800 The Pratt & Whitney X-1800 (later enlarged as the XH-2600) was an H-block aircraft engine project developed between 1938 and 1940, which was cancelled with only one example being built. Design and development The X-1800 was a watercooled 24-cy ...

liquid-cooled H24 engines. When development of the X-1800 ended in October 1940, Northrop proposed that the N-1 be powered by either the

Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp is an American twin-row, 18-cylinder, air-cooled radial aircraft engine with a displacement of , and is part of the long-lived Wasp family of engines. The R-2800 saw widespread use in many important A ...

or the

Lycoming XH-2470 The Lycoming XH-2470 was an H engine for aircraft designed and developed by Lycoming Engines in the 1930s. Although the engine was flown in an aircraft, it was not fitted to any aircraft selected for production. It was derived from the Lycoming O ...

. Although Northrop never received a contract to build the a full-scale N-1, the company did build a flying

mockup In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup may be a ''prototype'' if it provides at leas ...

as the N-1M. The N-1M was used mainly for research, but also served as the forerunner of the larger

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 p ...

and

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 d ...

bombers.

References

{{Northrop aircraft Flying wings Northrop aircraft Twin-engined pusher aircraft United States bomber aircraft Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United States

Design and development

See also

References