In 1941 before the USA entered World War II, Northrop and Consolidated Vultee Corporation had been commissioned to develop a large wing-only, long-range bomber designated XB-35 and XB-36.

Northrop advocated a "flying wing" as a means of reducing parasitic drag and eliminating structural weight not directly responsible for producing lift.

In December 1941, the Army Air Forces awarded prototype contracts to both Northrop and Consolidated Vultee for a bomber that could carry 4,500 kg (10,000 lb) of bombs to a round-trip mission of 16,000 km (10,000 mi).

This aircraft would be able to bomb Nazi-occupied Europe in the event that Britain fell (this was similar to Nazi Germany's own Amerikabomber program design competition through the RLM, itself initiated in the spring of 1942).

By applying input to both rudder pedals, both sets of surfaces were deployed creating drag so that the airspeed or the glide angle could be manipulated.

This tail cone would contain the remote sighting stations for the bomber's gunners and a cluster of rear-firing machine guns in the production aircraft.

Northrop reluctantly agreed to try a single-rotation propeller, which slightly increased takeoff distance and a reduced rate-of-climb and maximum speed.

As a result, the airframe promptly flew to more than 40,000 ft (12,000 m) and topped 520 mph (840 km/h) in flight tests, verifying the XB-35 air frame's aerodynamics, but at the price of range.

The new version disqualified it for the Air Force's top-priority mission as a strategic bomber, which at that time meant striking at the USSR's industrial and military complexes in the Ural Mountains.

[11] The Air Force, itself involved in a confusion of rank and job changes, eventually cancelled the XB-35 project, while continuing testing the B-35 airframe as the YB-49, even ordering 30 of the jet-powered bombers after the first YB-49 crashed.

The last of Northrop's big Flying Wings sat abandoned at the airport's edge for two years and was finally ordered scrapped on 1 December 1953.

[14] When the EB-35B project was canceled, the Air Force had Northrop's Turbodyne engine name, all its patents, and technical data reassigned to General Electric.

Actual flight tests of the aircraft revealed several problems: the contra-rotating props caused constant heavy drive-shaft vibration and the government-supplied gearboxes had frequent malfunctions and reduced the effectiveness of propeller control.

In addition to having continued drive shaft vibration problems, the new single-rotation props greatly reduced the aircraft's speed and performance.

[13] In the end, the program was terminated due to its technical difficulties and the obsolescence of its reciprocating propeller engines, and the fact it was far behind schedule and over budget.

While the competing propeller-driven B-36 was obsolete by that time and had just as many or even more development problems, the Air Force needed a very long-range, post-war atomic bomber to counter the perceived Soviet threat.

It had more faith that the B-36's "teething" problems could be overcome, compared to those of the new and radical "Flying Wing", the unofficial name that was later associated with all the Northrop "all-wing" designs.

There are long-standing conspiracy theories about the cancellation of the Flying Wing program; specifically, an accusation from Jack Northrop that Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington attempted to coerce him to merge his company with the Atlas Corporation-controlled Convair.