Northrop YRB-49A Reconniassance Heavy Bomber Prototype - Six Jet Engines - 1948

Northrop’s YRB-49A made its first flight; Northrop test pilot Fred C. Bretcher flew the aircraft from Hawthorne to Edwards AFB. A final attempt to rescue the ailing Flying Wing concept, the aircraft was a YB‑35 with its troublesome piston engines replaced with six Allison J35-A-19 turbojets. By this date, all of the other B-35 and B-49 airframes had been destroyed or scrapped. The Northrop YB-49 was an American prototype jet-powered heavy bomber developed by Northrop Corporation shortly after World War II for service with the United States Air Force. The YB-49 featured a flying wing design and was a turbojet-powered development of the earlier, piston-engined Northrop XB-35 and YB-35. The two YB-49s actually built were both converted YB-35 test aircraft. The YB-49 never entered production, being passed over in favor of the more conventional Convair B-36 piston-driven design. Design work performed in the development of the YB-35 and YB-49 nonetheless proved to be valuable to Northrop decades later in the eventual development of the B-2 stealth bomber, which entered service in the early 1990s.