Flying wing

A flying wing is an aircraft configuration in which the wing forms the main body, with no distinct fuselage and usually no separate tail. Its shape must provide lift, stability, and space for payload and crew.

Wing loading: The ratio of an aircraft’s weight to its wing area. Low wing loading can support efficient flight, but flying wings must also accommodate payload within the wing.
Horten brothers: German aircraft designers Walter and Reimar Horten, known for developing flying-wing gliders and aircraft. Their gliders and wartime designs became influential examples of the flying-wing approach.
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit: A United States stealth bomber whose planform is a flying wing. It is the best-known operational example of the configuration, combining internal payload bays with low observability.
Conventional aircraft: An aircraft layout with a distinct fuselage, wings, and usually a tail assembly. It separates the functions that a flying wing combines in its main lifting surface.
Center of gravity: The point at which an object's mass can be treated as concentrated. Its position relative to the aerodynamic center strongly affects a flying wing’s stability.
Jack Northrop: American aircraft designer who pursued flying-wing designs from the 1920s through the 1940s. His long-running experiments established a major American lineage of flying-wing aircraft.
Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider: A United States stealth bomber designed as the successor to the B-2 Spirit. Its flying-wing planform carries the configuration into a newer generation of long-range stealth aircraft.
Canard (aeronautics): An aircraft configuration with a small forewing ahead of the main wing. A canard offers an alternative way to provide pitch control and stability without a conventional tail.
Longitudinal static stability: An aircraft’s tendency to return toward its original pitch after a small disturbance. Without a conventional tailplane, the wing’s geometry and control surfaces must help stabilize pitch.
Northrop N-1M: An experimental all-wing aircraft built by Northrop and first flown in 1940. It tested whether a compact powered aircraft could fly without a conventional fuselage or tail.

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