Northrop YB-49     42-102367                         (c/n  1487)

                                       

                                      Three YB-49 prototypes were constructed (two YB-49s and one YB-49A), all of them by modifying
                                      earlier XB-35 piston engined flying wings.    The above depicts the first protoype.  The second YB-49,
                                      42-102368 was destroyed in a crash in the Mojave Desert on 5 June 1948.  Power was supplied by
                                      eight Allison//General Electric J35-A-19 turbojets delivering some 3,800 lbs of thrust each (or about the
                                      a third of what a G.E.90 will deliver today).   Anyway, the B-49 never entered production, as the
                                      powers that be opted for the more conventional B-36.  The world would have to wait another fifty years
                                      for a viable flying wing bomber, this time in the shape of the B-2, predictably also a Northrop design.