Horten Puts Flying Wing Aircraft Design Up For Sale

Horten Aircraft has ended its quest of bringing a ‘flying wing’ aircraft to the general aviation market, announcing in early August that despite possessing a “coherent product concept” backed by a flight-tested demonstrator, a “decisive step into full funding has not materialized.” The German start-up said it is now looking to sell the program and assets to a new owner it hopes will be “capable of advancing [the concept] into execution.” 

In a statement on July 23, Horten confirmed that its asset sale is centred around the flight-tested HX-2 demonstrator, a full-scale, 32-foot-wingspan aircraft unveiled in 2019. This tailless, composite, blended-wing design is powered by a rear-mounted pusher propeller and notably flew in to the Aero Friedrichshafen show in Germany that year. At the time, Horten aircraft managing director Bernhard Mattlener suggested that “the design of the airframe makes it easily adaptable for installing new propulsion technologies we anticipate will become available in the future.” 

Horten had intended its HX-2 variant would lead to a commercialised, two-seat NG2 variant, suggesting on its website that the FAA’s new MOSAIC rules “will revolutionize general aviation as did light sport aviation rules around 2005.” It also asserted that the NG5 model—a hypothetical five-seat, twinjet variant—“will replace the Cirrus SR series as the technological pinnacle of general aviation.”

Although Horten is choosing to step back from pursuing the project, it nevertheless asserts that it has received “highly encouraging feedback through its recent international investor outreach,” which it believes supports “a coherent and execution-ready foundation for continuation.” 

Despite being founded in 2015, the contemporary Horten’s blended-wing design traces its lineage back to World War Two when the Luftwaffe tasked brothers Reimar and Walter Horten with building and flying three prototype aircraft. The resulting experimental, jet-propelled Horten Ho 229 had a 50 foot wingspan but did not progress to operational service.