Nazi stealth-plane recreated

Northrop Grumman engineers have recreated a top-secret German aeroplane that could have affected the course of World War II.

In the early 1940s, an innovative aircraft design by two German brothers caught the attention of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, which began a secret construction project.

The Horten 229 (named for its designers, Walter and Reimar Horten) was a jet-powered fighter aircraft with a smooth contour in the shape of a flying wing.

That shape is now known to be more difficult for radar to detect than traditional configurations.

The Horten 229 was briefly flight tested but could not be deployed before the end of the war.

Since then, aviation historians have wondered how effective the futuristic design would have been against Allied early-warning radar, widely credited as a major factor in blunting Nazi air power.

So the Northrop Grumman engineers designed a full-scale model of the 55-foot flying wing and built it to the exact specifications of the original.