Northrop N-9M

N-9M
The restored N-9MB in 2014
General information
Type	Prototype
Manufacturer	Northrop Corporation
Designer	Jack Northrop
Status	Prototype only, 4 aircraft preserved
Primary user	United States Air Force
Number built	4
History
First flight	27 December 1942

The Northrop N-9M was an approximately one-third scale, 60-foot (18 m) span all-wing aircraft used for the development of the full size, 172-foot (52 m) wingspan Northrop XB-35 and YB-35 flying wing long-range, heavy bomber. First flown in 1942, the N-9M (M for Model) was the third in a lineage of all-wing Northrop aircraft designs that began in 1929 when Jack Northrop succeeded in early experiments with his single pusher propeller, twin-tailed, twin-boom, all stressed metal skin Northrop X-216H monoplane,^[1] and a decade later, the dual-propeller N-1M of 1939–1941.^[2] Northrop's pioneering all-wing aircraft would lead Northrop Grumman many years later to eventually develop the advanced B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which debuted in 1989 in US Air Force inventory.^[3]