Northrop JB-1 Bat

The Northrop JB-1 Bat was a prototype jet bomb, in effect an early surface-to-surface cruise missile, developed in the United States during the Second World War as an answer to the German V-1 flying bomb. Northrop already held a contract for a small rocket-propelled flying wing, project MX-334, and combined that work with the new weapon under the MX-543 contract awarded in July 1944. The design was a tailless flying wing carrying two General Electric B-1 turbojets and two bombs in bays at the wing roots. Because Northrop had no wind tunnel, a manned glider version was built first and flown by Harry Crosby on 27 August 1944. The first powered launch on 7 December 1944 stalled and crashed, blamed on a wrong elevon setting and a damaged engine, and the weak, unreliable turbojets led Northrop to switch to a pulsejet and build the JB-10 instead. A restored manned JB-1 glider is held by the Western Museum of Flight.