The concept of a tail-less Flying Wing aircraft is an interesting and fascinating story. This collection of rare films shows many different historical aircraft that were the predecessors to the USAF B-2 Stealth bomber.

Even before WWII German designers such as the Horten brothers collaborated to create over 6 glider-wing prototypes of what they called "Nurflügels". Later in 1944 they created a jet powered version as one of Hitler's last ditch 'wunderweapons', the Ho 229. An incomplete example was captured at the end of the war, and can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum.

In parallel, the all-wing plane concept was also being studied by innovative aircraft designer Jack Northrop in the 1930's and 1940's. His N1-M prtotype was a flying success and led to the design of the much larger XB-35 bomber design, and its follow-on the jet-powered YB-49 flying wing.

The six rare films on this DVD include :

- Horten Glider demonstration
Film showing the pre-war flight test of the Horten Ho II glider. (33 secs)

- German Flying wing Ho 229
Montage of rare photos of the Ho 229. (1 min)

- N1-M Flight
Test flight footage of the Northrop prototype flying wing in 1941. (1 min)

- XB-35
Northrop Heavy bomber demonstration flight, Inglewood California (2.5 min)

- YB-49
Rare promotional film discusses the merits of the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing, the jet-powered re-design of the YB- 35 bomber. (22 min)

BONUS FILM:
Aeronautical Oddities is a funny film collection of weird experimental aircraft of the early twentieth century. All the goofiness aside, you will find clips on two interesting tail-less aircraft with semi-flying wing type designs. (16 min)

BONUS Documents:
Also on the disc, RTF text files, are the following in-depth historical documents on Flying Wing aircraft design:
- "An Idea" Short paper by Reimar Horten
- "Ten Years Development of the Flying Wing High-Speed Fighter" longer paper by Horten Bros. (1943)
- "The Development of All-Wing Aircraft. " Jack Northrop lecture (1947)