[net.aviation] Flying Wing in Raiders of the Lost Ark

jl (01/03/83)

At last a book on German pre-World War II flying wing sailplanes:

FLYING WING -- NURFLUGEL, by Dr. Reimar Horten,
Scott Airpark, Lovettsville, VA 22080  (Sole U.S. distributer)
$35--pp.  400 illustrations.  Text in English and German.

Why the interest?  Let me recap my news item from a year and a half ago.

The 1981 movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark", set in pre-World War II German
territory, included an improbable prop-powered flying wing as a comic element,
certainly fictional, since no real German power-plane like it existed.

But George Lucas may also have intended that the powered flying wing be
out of time and out of place with its surroundings, unaware that it
seems derived from the German Horten III pre-World War II flying wing
sailplane [Soaring Magazine, v. 45, #6 (June 1981), pp. 40-43], unintentionally
perhaps.  If so, the joke is on him.  We may never know.

				Not afraid to never know,
				James Lipscomb

jcw (01/03/83)

I grew up close to the Douglas Aircraft factory in Long Beach,
California... I remember seeing a flying wing several times (probably
late 40's or very early 50's).  I assume it was experimental.

cfiaime (01/03/83)

Should we not forget the Northrop Flying Wings (XB-35, XB-49(?), XP-79(?))
of the late 1940's and early 1950's.  Also, the F-102/F-106 series came
from this very same German designer, or at least his concepts...