Clipped Wings: The Death of Jack Northrop's Flying Wing Bombers

Acquisition Review Quarterly, Fall, 2001 by Dr. Bud Baker

A RECONNAISSANCE VERSION: THE YRB-49

At the start of this paper, we saw Mr. Northrop's claim that he had received a firm order for 35 bombers. Yet, this research shows that the Air Force was highly critical of the YB-49's bombing performance, and, indeed, that the aircraft could not even carry the most important bombs in the American arsenal. So, which view is correct?

The answer is both...sort of. Mr. Northrop did receive an order, not for 35 aircraft, but for 30. However, the order was not for bombers, but instead for a long-range reconnaissance variant, called the YRB-49.

If the YB-49 had suffered by being a modification, as Materiel Command suggested, then the YRB-49 was doubly damned by being a modification of a modification. One look at the aircraft reveals the compromises: Four of the internally mounted jet engines were removed to make way for fuel tanks, whereas two jets hung awkwardly in single pods from beneath the wing, sullying Jack Northrop's dream of an aerodynamically pure all-wing aircraft.

It was this aircraft the Air Force ordered in 1948, to be delivered on a three-aircraft-per-month schedule. At this point, the long-term issue of Northrop's lack of production capacity arose again. Northrop had never been able to produce anything close to three large planes per month (Air Materiel Command, 1948). When the Soviet blockade of Berlin increased world tensions, the Air Force felt it would need even higher-rate production, and the Air Force began to look at other plants to build the Northrop design. This was not a secret and was in fact reported in the industry magazine, Aviation Week.

Northrop's productive capacity of only three bombers per month at its Hawthorne, California facilities cannot meet the acceleration of the program desired by the Air Force. ("Air Force," 1948)

At the same time, the huge Air Force plant in Fort Worth was about to be vacated, as the production of Convair's s giant B-36 was expected to soon end. The Air Force had been unhappy with the B36, seeing it as too unreliable and too slow. The B-36 production was expected to end at the 95th aircraft (McNarney, 1948). At the direction of the Air Force Chief of Staff, Air Materiel Commander General McNarney wrote to Northrop and Convair:

Since it is not intended to buy more than the ninety-five B-36 airplanes presently on contract, it is desired that the production of RB-49s be moved to [Fort Worth] at the earliest possible date.. It is requested that representatives of Northrop Aircraft and Consolidated Vultee Aircraft arrange the necessary plans. (McNarney, 1948)

General McNarney's letter stands today as a model of bureaucratic miscommunication. What did he mean? Was Northrop supposed to just turn over its most promising design to its competitor? Or was Convair just expected to relinquish the massive Fort Worth operation, along with its thousands of employees, to Northrop? The record makes clear that the two contractors had these questions and more. They met, as requested, but could not agree on fair arrangement. Finally on July 16 1948, Air Force Secretary Symington met with the heads of both firms in Los Angeles This was almost certainly the meeting at which, according to Mr. Northrop, Secretary Symington raised the issue of a merger. The parties agreed on a solution: All but one of the RB-49s would be built by Convair, in Fort Worth. In return, Northrop would receive two-thirds of the profit on the $84,000,000 contract. Convair would receive a third of the profit, while -- and this was far more important -- keeping open the Fort Worth factories (Testimony, 1949a, p . 68).