Please add one to the rating if you find the following perfectly intelligible:
"The contra-rotating fixed pitch propellers of the H V [Horten glider mk V] were installed directly on the crankshafts of its engines, which were mounted at the extreme aft of the centre section. This layout left stability at its margin with the c/g at the aft limit. The H V crashed during its first flight in May 1937 at Bonn-Hangelar."
As the last sentence shows, you don't have to be an expert to enjoy this book - though it certainly helps, as the preceding sentences show.

The book gives a brief outline of the lives of the Horten brothers; Walter (1913-1998) and Reimar (1915-1993). Like so many other German boys, they were engaged in the sailplane movement. The Treaty of Versailles had severly limited German aviation; instead, numerous glider clubs were founded, were German boys and young men could receive what was ultimately military training by Luftwaffe veterans. Indeed, Reimar (who possibly was the greatest genius of the two) would prefer the simplicity of the all wing glider throughout his career, even when designing powerful fighters and bombers.

The book also describes, briefly, all the Horten creations, from the H I to the H XVIII. All of them were built without fuselage; no tail, no stabilizers, simply two wings attached to each other; several planes, including the Ho 229, has a short, curved tail, giving it a definite "bat-feel". This design has several advantages (the Hortens didn't invent it, nor were they alone in the Nurflügel-school) but also several drawbacks. That is one reason why no Horten plane, as it came to be, was ever involved in any actual fighting or bombing; their main product was always sailplanes, used for transports.

A detail I find particularly fascinating is the fact that they kept count of the designs (with only a few exceptions towards the end), from the 1933 home-built (almost literally; parts of it were built in their parents' home) hobby glider that got about seven hours of flying time, up to the proposed twin-jet Amerika-Bomber, that would bring death and destruction to New York, only twelve years later.

But the real subject of the book is, indeed, the H IX, or Ho 229. In effect, it's short life as an official Luftwaffe project began in March 1943. That month, Goering told the aircraft industry that no new contracts would be given to new promising prototypes - of which the Reich had plenty - unless they could carry a 1000 kg bombload 1000 km into enemy territory with a speed of 1000 km/h. These outlandish specs would of course not be fulfilled in years, but the Horten brothers thought they could outdo the competition with a jet Nurflügel. The book then details the efforts to do so, with parallell designs, novel solutions to old as well as new problems (my favorite being when Reimar considered dealing with the G-forces by submerging the pilot in a cockpit filled with water) and so on, as the war keeps going worse and worse.

"[The Ho 229 was to be] a high-speed, cannon-equipped, all-weather fighter-bomber, heavy fighter and reconnaissance aircraft [...]"

The quote from the sleeve does not indicate whether the Ho 229 could have ever fulfilled this Wunder Waffen wish list. The fact that the very first test flight with jet-engines fitted took place in December, 1944 indicated that the design was far too late. Many of the supervising Luftwaffe officers knew that new airplane designs takes time, in particular when they are as unorthodox as the Ho 229, and quite a few of the problems the brothers had to face came from this undeniable fact. Considering the aerodynamic problems, the plane might never have evolved into a real problem for the Allies, never mind a wonder-weapon, even given another year or two of development.

Like most other advanced prototypes, it has the benefit of very little real field testing to distort the image of a Wunder Waffe in the making. This dream of a plane is all the more alluring since it certainly doesn't look like any other WWII plane; if anything, it resembles a B-2 Stealth Bomber far more than anything else (the fictious Batwing excepted), which of course has made some people suspect or even believe the Germans had a stealth project going on. The authors make certain to put this myth to rest; it is simply not true.

Summary: Shepelev & Ottens have written a book that mainly describes the design and development of the Ho 229. This they do very well. They do touch a number of other worthy subjects - the Horten brothers, as individuals and as a dynamic duo; the bureaucracy of the Reich; the constant and growing shortage of everything towards the end of the war, as well as all the other ways the rules were under constant change; or the surreal last weeks of the war, when worthless contracts and production orders were signed until the very end - the deeper treatment of which would have made an equally good book, though for a somewhat different audience. Thus, the split rating.

(Reviewed by Peter O.)
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.