posted on May, 16 2003 @ 12:14 AM
Get yourself a copy of Green's "Warplanes of the Third Reich". The Horten brothers (Walter and Reimar) became interested in the flying wing in the
early 1930's and built several gliders to demostrate the feasibilty of such aircraft beginning with the Horten I in 1931. The Go 229 was a wingless
fighter that was near completion when the war ended. If you are thinking of variable wing geometry then that would be the Messerschmitt P.1011. The
P.1011 was a research aircraft and was 80 per cent complete at the end of the war. However the P.1011 did not have an inflight capability to vary
the wing geometry. It had three settings which could be selected on the ground and then flown for test results. The first aircraft to ever have a
variable wing geometry was the Bell X-5 which first flew in June, 1951.
By the way German engineers did not invent the turbojet. The concept of the turbojet was first conceived by Frank Whittle of the UK. However the
first turbojet aircraft to fly was the He 178 (first flight was 24 August, 1939). In the late 1930's aero engineers realized the the performace of
pistion engined aircraft (such as the Me 109, the Spitfire, and the P-51) would soon reach their limitations of speed. Frank Whittle conceived of the
turbojet as a possible method of increasing the horsepower/weight ratio to the degree needed to reach higher speeds. Most of the early turbojet
development was based on his patents. Development of jet aircraft was pursured in several countries before and during the war. (Messerschmitt,
Heinkel, and Junkers Motorenbau in Germany, Bell and Lockheed in the USA, Whittle and Gloster Aircraft in the UK, Caproni in Italy). Later in the
war, the Japanese began development of jet powered aircraft based on German technical developments.