Customer Reviews

Horten Ho 9: A Photo History (X Planes of the Third Reich)

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One of a series of Books on the subject of prototype or "drawing board" aircraft developed in Germany towards the end of World War II. Unlike some in the series, this book concentrates on an aircraft which actually flew, and in fact, is still in existence at the Smithsonian Institution. The book offers a wealth of photographs on this important, but relatively obscure aircraft and its predecessors. Particularily satisfying is the overview of the other aircraft produced by the Horten brothers and also the various versions of the Ho9 - both powered and unpowered. Of special interest are the pictures of the surviving unrestored airframe. There is not an over reliance upon computer generated pictures and for that reason I would say it is one of the best in the series.

As the title and low price suggests, this is a short (75 pages) wide-format book of captioned photos of the unique Horten Ho 9 aircraft. It actually provides some coverage of the earlier Horten planes (such as the Ho 2), but the bulk of the coverage is indeed the Ho 9, and especially the Ho 9 V3, also known as Ho 229. There is some introductory text, but it is poorly formatted and filled with grammatical errors. I can't speak about factual errors, but I am wary.

As for the photos, they are all black and white, and include some historical photos I had not seen before. The captions are generally good, making it clear what is being depicted, especially since there were several variants of this plane. However, many of the photos are in fact computer renderings, and not very good ones: the renderings were made at low-resolution, then appear to have been printed on paper and scanned. They tend to lack contrast and detail, and some images are duplicates from slightly different angles, or take up full pages. The renderings would have been more compelling in color, but again all images in this book are black and white. Some of the renderings are useful in depicting proposed variations that were never drawn or constructed during the war, e.g. adding a vertical fin or additional engines.

As a pictorial overview of the Ho 9, this book suffices. However, if you are looking for more than that, I would recommend the more detailed hardcover Horten Ho 229 Spirit of Thuringia: The Horten All-Wing Jet Fighter, though it appears to be out of print now. The author of the book reviewed here also has a more recent Kindle book covering the aircraft called Horten 229 A Close-up Book, but unfortunately the preview is nearly useless, so I can't comment further before buying it myself.

Please reply to this review if you have comments or questions. Thank you!

This book has too little text and too many pictures created on a computer. Not worth it.

This book provides an amazing story that, while reading like Roswell, is entirely true.

The Horten Brothers were Germans; they were probably card-carrying Nazis.

But, in a more broad sense, they were memebers of an extended international family of visionary aircraft designers that included, among others, Frank Whittle, Jack Northrup, Kelly Kelly Johnson, Kurt Tank, and Mikoyen and Gurevich.

What the Horten Brothers did was create a viable design for a powered flying wing aircraft. Their work progressed slowly with perhaps as few as three prototypes nearing completion. Today, a sole Ho 9/Ho 229 is held by the National Air and Space Museum in the United States. Upon viewing this relic, one is stunned at just how similar it is to the Northrup designs of the 1940s and 1990s.

Its construction was wood over a tubular frame. Test flights of earlier versions indicated a tendency toward instability and delmaination of the plywood surface. It was also nearly invisble to radar. The two problems were resolved via the use of fly-by-wire technology and composites; the invisibility to radar was retained.

In the late 1940s/early 1950s, the Northrup B-49 flying wing was tested. It, too, suffered from instability, while being less visible to radar than similar sized aircraft.

By the end of the 20th Century, technology, in the form of composites and fly-by-wire controls made the design a success. It is the B-2 Spirit.

This book recounts the development of the Horten flying wings with a bare minimum of CGI fluff. Instead it is loaded with real photographs of the Hortens and their aircraft. While the text is spare and the overall volume thin, it is long on quality, content and truth.

If you want to know more about flying wing technology, where it originated and - by implication - how dicey the Second World War might have been if it either lasted longer or if the Germans had been more thoughtful with their R&D funding, this is the place to start.

It is amazing the Germans could develop such advanced
technology while we were bombing the snot out of them.
A fascinating plane, stealthy by accident, could have
changed the course of the war.