Horten Ho 229 Spirit of Thuringia: The Horten All-Wing Jet Fighter

The Horten Ho 229 stands as a landmark prototype revealing wartime ambition and future stealth-inspired design.

The Horten Ho229 effectively one of the Luftwaffe's legendary secret projects or so-called wonder weapons was one of the most enigmatic aircraft designs to emerge from World War 2. In terms of design it was in some ways a precursor of the 'stealth' concept and when viewed in relation to its contemporaries, it was clearly years ahead of its time. The Ho 229 was planned as the first of the next generation of German jet fighters to follow on from the Messerschmitt Me 262. The intention was to create a high-speed cannon-equipped fighter-bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft, which saw figures such as Goering, Galland and Lippisch involved in its development, commenced flight testing in December 1944 and it was planned to re-equip the Me 163 equipped JG 400 with the Ho 229 later in the war.

This book charts in detail the development and operational record of the Horten Ho 229. One of the prototypes J3 survives in the USA and the book will included specially commissioned photographs of this survivor. In total, the book will have some 200 photographs, many of which are previously unpublished, alongside highly detailed scale drawings, the latter produced by Arthur Bentley, another leading authority on the Horten design.

Andrei Shepelev has been interested in aviation, especially in unconventional and lesser-known designs, since an early age, and as an aircraft modeller. He is a former student of the Kuibyshev Aviation Institution, specializing in spacecraft and rocket technology and has worked for a number of publishing organizations as an editor and designer. He is married with a son and two daughters and lives in Russia.

Huib Ottens first became interested in aviation when he read Biggles stories as a boy. He has a particular interest in the history of the Luftwaffe and has been researching the history of the Horten Brothers and their flying wing designs for some 20 years.