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Heinkel
He 111 HE111
The He 111 was the main Luftwaffe bomber during the early
stages of World War II, and is perhaps the most obvious
symbol of the German side of the Battle of Britain.
Developed from a pre-war airliner design the 111 was
never a great design, and was removed from service as
soon a other medium bombers had the range and payload to
match that of the 111. Smaller runs were also completed
as transport aircraft in the later stages of the war.
History
In the early 1930's Ernst Heinkel decided to build the
world's fastest passenger plane, a lofty goal met with
more than a little skepticism by the German aircraft
industry and its newly evolving political leadership. To
make matters worse he entrusted the development to the
Günther brothers, fairly new to the company and
basically untested. To everyone's surprise they delivered
on the promise, delivering an improved version of the
already fast Lockheed 9 Orion. The first example of their
soon-to-be-famous Heinkel He 70 Blitz rolled off the line
in 1932 and immediately started breaking record after
record. In its normal 4 passenger version it cruised at
almost 200mph, even though it was powered by only a
single 600hp BMW V1 engine.
Following the success of the Blitz, practically every
design the brothers penned looked like it. It was only a
matter of time before they turned their attention to
developing a larger and more powerful twin engine
version, producing a plane that had many of the Blitz's
features – including its elliptical gull-wing, small
rounded control surfaces, and BMW engines. With the
engines moved off the nose being the only notable change
in looks, their new design was often called the
Doppel-Blitz (double-Blitz).
Prototypes
He 111V1 was completed as a bomber prototype and kept
secret. It first flew in February 1935, and was followed
quickly by the civilian-equipped V2. V2 had a smaller
wing, and used the bomb-bay as a four-seat "smoking
compartment" with another six seats behind it in the
rear fuselage. V2 entered service with Lufthansa in 1936,
along with five newly built versions known as the He
111C.
V3 was also completed as a bomber prototype. It
supplanted the main bomb-bay with smaller bays in the
inner wings, and was armed with three MG15 machine guns
for defence. The added weight slowed the plane
considerably, which now cruised at a measly 170mph.
Early production
Ten He 111A-0 models based on the V3 were built, but they
proved to be underpowered and were eventually sold to
China.
In early 1936 the V3 was fitted with 950hp Daimler-Benz
DB 600Aa engines. Performance jumped to about 225mph, and
the Luftwaffe placed orders for over 300 He 111B models.
Some of these planes were sent to Spain to serve with the
Condor Legion, where they proved to be able to outfly the
majority of fighters sent to intercept them, and it
appeared that the light three-gun armament was more than
enough to handle the ones that managed to catch them.
This would lead the Luftwaffe into a false sense of
security, as the days of the bomber being faster than the
fighters would be short-lived and the woeful armament
would soon prove to be deadly.
The design quickly ran though a series of minor design
versions to fix one sort of problem or another. One of
the more obvious changes started with the He 111F models,
which moved from the elliptical wing to one with straight
leading and trailing edges, which was easier to build.
The DB engine was always a problem because the German
engine industry couldn't produce enough of them, but as
the best engine of it's day it was used in practically
every design. Eventually the RLM (the German Air
Ministry) decided that all of the DB engines would go to
Messerschmitt for use in the Bf 109 and Bf 110. Many
promising designs were cancelled due to this decision,
while most other designs were forced to switch engines.
The result for the He 111 was a slew of minor versions
with all sorts of engine installations - basically
whatever they could find.
One of these runs was the He 111P, which mounted the
updated Dailmer-Benz DB 601 and a newly designed nose
section that replaced the 'stepped' cockpit with the
now-famous glazed 'dome' over the front of the plane.
These improvements allowed it to reach almost 250mph.
Several hundred of these were built in 1938, and saw
action over Poland.
He 111H
It was at this point that the new 1,100hp Junkers Jumo
211 engine started deliveries. When the Jumo was fitted
to the P model it became the He 111H, the most produced
version of the design by far. The main versions in the
early stages of the war were the H-5 which included
additional guns in the rear side windows, and the similar
H-6 which could optionally carry torpedos (although they
rarely did so). Both replaced the earlier versions
in-wing bomb bays with additional fuel tanks for better
range.
Even with an upgraded Jumo of 1,300hp the plane was now
so overburdened with equipment that it could rarely reach
even 220mph. That meant it had neither the speed nor the
guns needed to put up a fight with the modern RAF
fighters it would meet over England, let alone the
cannon-armed planes a year later. Nevertheless the He 111
was kept in production until 1944 because the RLM
continually dropped the ball on replacing it: the He 177
Greif was a disaster, and the entire advanced Bomber B
program was eventually abandoned. The vast majority of
the 7,300 He 111's produced would be the H models,
largely identical to the first H introduced in 1939.
Along with the Me 109 the He 111 came to symbolize German
air power. This was true in more ways than one - both
planes were left in production long after they should
have been replaced, and at the hands of rapidly
modernizing allied air forces, both would suffer terribly
for being a few years too old.
Specifications for
He 111 H
Engines: 2x Junkers Jumo
213E-2 inline piston engines with 2-stage supercharger
& GM-1 power boost @ 1,750 hp each
Wing Span: 22.60 m
Length: 16.39 m
Height: 4 m
Weight: Empty 7,700 kg
/ Loaded 14,000 kg
Maximum Speed: 420
km/h
Ceiling: 8,500 m
Range: 2,600 km
Crew: 5
Armanment: 3x 13 mm MG 131
machine guns / 6x 7.92 mm MG 81 machine guns / 2,200 kg
of bombs
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