Horten Ho 229: Germany's Experimental Flying Wing

In Horten Ho 229: Germany's Experimental Flying Wing, Stephen Carrington tells the story of one of the most unusual and ambitious aircraft projects of the Second World War. Conceived as Germany's air war deteriorated and conventional solutions seemed increasingly inadequate, the Ho 229 combined jet propulsion with the Horten brothers' radical flying wing philosophy. Sleek, tailless, and unlike almost anything else under development at the time, it represented both genuine aerodynamic innovation and the growing desperation of a nation racing against military defeat. Drawing on wartime records, technical documentation, captured intelligence reports, development history, and surviving aircraft evidence, Carrington follows the Ho 229 from Walter and Reimar Horten's early glider experiments to the construction and testing of the H.IX prototypes. He examines the challenges of integrating Junkers Jumo 004 jet engines into a flying wing, the aircraft's projected armament and interceptor role, the transition to Gothaer Waggonfabrik for production planning, and the industrial shortages, fuel problems, and collapsing transportation network that prevented the design from reaching operational service. More than the story of an experimental jet fighter, this book explores the line between technological achievement and wartime mythology. Carrington examines the Ho 229's real capabilities, its limitations, its capture by Allied forces, and the later claims connecting it to stealth technology and modern flying wing aircraft. Preserved today as one of aviation history's most remarkable unfinished machines, the Ho 229 remains a compelling symbol of innovation pursued at the very edge of possibility.