Grandaddy of the B-2 by velocicrapper

Photography • Military • posted on May 27, 2003

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Description

::: Part 32 of a series of Warbird Panorama Photos ::: Taken at the Planes of Fame Museum (Jey Museum Portion) in Chino, California (at the Chino Airport). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Planes of Fame Airshow 2003 images now online at http://www.warbirds.n3.net --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This aircraft is the museum's very famous and very rare Northrop N9MB Flying Wing. the only survivor of 3 built, this aircraft is the grandaddy of the modern day B-2 Stealth Bomber. This aircraft flys regularly and makes for quite a show. Surprisingly, when the plane is pointed away from you, it's quite noisey! But pointed in any other direction and it's very hard to hear. Camera is a digital Toshiba PDRM-5 (2.15 MP). Image was resized from 3745x1062. Please note that there are some mistakes in the stitching due to the fact that the camera's lens is not dead center to the rotation point on the tripod.

Comments (4)

grvdm

9:42PM | Tue, 27 May 2003

I am so glad that you are the first one that publicly stated that this aircraft was the precursor of the B-2.I have a few picture of this aircraft when it was first built and tested flight,The next model that Northop came out with a four engine model which went thru a updating from props to jets. As a jet we did have quite a fleet of them until they were retired. They were not kept up at the time because this was prior to computers. The B-2 is an ofchute of this airplane you have photographed but could be developed at the time to non existent computers. B-2 can only be flown with computers.Hope you don't mind my explanation on a historic airplane. Regards, Guy Do keep up your great photogrphs !

tsa001

1:09AM | Wed, 28 May 2003

um, i hate to say this, but this is NOT the grand-daddy of the b-2. the REAL flying wing was a jet-engined bird, and was ALOT bigger than the plane you see here. it also had small vertical stabilizers near the engines, if i remember correctly.

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velocicrapper

2:44PM | Wed, 28 May 2003

Actually, this plane IS the beginning. Remember, there were all prop planes before the jet engines. This is how the B-2 started. This plane was built shortly after WW2 (I think?). Because of the tests and airframes that these N9Ms had done, this mad way to bigger flying wings (B-2 size). But, Stealth technology was not invented at the time, nor was the computers/engines to power a wing as the B-2 is. Through the developments of the jet engine and then the advent of stealth technology (Skunk Works) they were able to make the B-2. But the N9MB is the great ansestor and the beginning of the B-2. grvdm is very correct in what he wrote! Must like the P-51 Mustang is the grandaddy of the modern F-15 Eagle & F-16 Falcon!

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