Hoarding H IV

Hoarding H IV
Type:	Glider
Design country:	German Empire
Manufacturer:	Hoard
First flight:	May 1941
Number of pieces:	4th

Drawing of the H IV as it was in 1950 in the USA

The Horten H IV was a flying wing - experimental glider the brothers Horten .

history

The first H IV was designed and built in Koenigsberg in 1940/41 as a high-performance sailor. Since there was no official permit or order, the construction took place in secret. The first flight in May 1941 with the pilot Heinz Scheidhauer had a flight time of over an hour. Three more copies were built in Göttingen , which began flight tests in the first half of 1943. In December 1944 another example was built in Bad Hersfeld with a laminar profile wing and designated as H IVb. The profile was copied from a North American P-51 after surprisingly low resistance values were measured in wind tunnel tests by the DVL . However, the profile turned out to be unsuitable for the low Re numbers in gliding. During a test flight on January 18, 1945 near Göttingen, the plane crashed in a tailspin, whereby the pilot was able to get out, but his parachute no longer opened. The production of another 10 copies of the H IVb was stopped after the accident.

One in the United States spent H IV was in the 1950s by the famous emigrated to the United States Me-163 -Testpiloten Rudolf Opitz successfully flown on national gliding competitions. A photo of this machine, painted in silver and orange, adorns the cover of the autobiography of Reimar Horten, whereby the sky reflecting in the silver areas gives the impression that the machine is blue / orange.

The H IV is said to have been referred to as Horten Ho 251.

construction

The aircraft was a tailless flying wing construction without side stabilization fins in mixed construction . The pilot lay prone in the bow with his legs sticking out into a fuselage gondola.

Preserved copies

An H IV from 1943 is on display in the Schleissheim aircraft yard . A replica was completed in 2016.

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data H IVa	Data H IV
crew	1
length	3.65 m
span	20.3 m
height	2.0 m
Wing area	18.9 m²
Wing extension	21.8
V position	5 °
Glide ratio	37
Slightest sinking	0.5 m / s at 60 km / h	0.45 m / s at 70 km / h
Empty mass	250 kg	270 kg
Takeoff mass	330 kg	350 kg
Landing speed	55 km / h	60 km / h
Top speed	200 km / h

Web links

Commons : Horten H.IV - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

http://www.horten-iv.org/ (German)
http://www.sailplanedirectory.com/horten.htm (English, pictures, index)
http://nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/Horten_Nurflugels/horten_nurflugels.html (English, pictures, index)

Individual evidence

^ William Green, Gordon Swanborough: Horten Exotica .. to the H IX and beyond . In: AIR Enthusiast Thirty-nine, pp. 6-7
^ German Military Aircraft Designations (1933–1945). Retrieved July 26, 2020 (English).
^ Horten IV. Deutsches Museum, accessed on July 26, 2020 .
↑ Project: New construction of the flying wing Horten IV , Holzleicht & Flugzeugbau Sascha Heuser
↑ ^a ^b Andrei Schepelew, Huib Ottens: Horten Ho 229 - The legendary flying wing . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-613-04254-4 , p. 140-141 .

[1] William Green, Gordon Swanborough: Horten Exotica .. to the H IX and beyond . In: AIR Enthusiast Thirty-nine, pp. 6-7

[Parsch-2] German Military Aircraft Designations (1933–1945). Retrieved July 26, 2020 (English).

[3] Horten IV. Deutsches Museum, accessed on July 26, 2020 .

[4] Project: New construction of the flying wing Horten IV , Holzleicht & Flugzeugbau Sascha Heuser

[:0-5] Andrei Schepelew, Huib Ottens: Horten Ho 229 - The legendary flying wing . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-613-04254-4 , p. 140-141 .