Russell E. Lee

What one has here is a dispassionate analysis of just what Reimar Horten's flying wings were capable of, separated from the mythology of German wonder weapons that arrived too late to really impact the war. Paying close attention to Horten's efforts to refine the aerodynamics of all-wing aircraft, Lee concludes that the man made some real advances but these were still insufficient to truly transcend the built-in instability of the platform prior to the development of fly-by-wire technology. Lee also notes that Horten was sometimes his own worst enemy, having the true-believer's unwillingness to listen to the bad news about some of his enthusiasms.… (more)