From: Alan Dicey
Date: 7/4/2004 5:27 AM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

Cub Driver wrote:
Not really. The 35 had those great engine pods, and the 49 had a
bunch of vertical fins, so in fact neither one was a true flying
wing. Nobody ever managed to fly the 35 enough to determine its
utility (the long shafts were the main problem),

The main reason the 35 flopped was the contraprop gearing system was unreliable
so they went with the single props which radically affected performance.

snip

I read that the YB-35 managed to do without vertical surfaces due to the
props providing enough longtitudinal stability; although I'm not
entirely clear as to how that would work.

It wasn't the props as much as the drive shaft fairings.

snip

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired