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Heinkel He 100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_100
The Heinkel He 100 was a German pre-World War II fighter aircraft design from Heinkel. Although it proved to be one of the fastest fighter aircraft in the world at the time of its development, the design was not ordered into series production. Approximately 19 prototypes and pre-production examples were built. None are known to have survived the war. The reason for the He 100 failing to reach production status is mostly unknown. Officially, the Luftwaffe rejected the He 100 to concentrate single-seat fighter development on the Messerschmitt Bf 109. Following the adoption of the Bf 109 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 as the Luftwaffe's standard fighter types, the Ministry of Aviation (the Reichsluftfahrtministerium or RLM) announced a "rationalization" policy that placed fighter development at Messerschmitt and bomber development at Heinkel. Because there are no surviving examples, and since many factory documents - including all blueprints for the He 100 - were destroyed during a bombing raid, there is limited specific information about the design and its unique systems. Walter Günter, one half of the famous Günter brothers, looked at the existing He 112, which had already been heavily revised into the He 112B version and decided it had reached the end of its evolution. He started over with a completely new design, Projekt 1035. Learning from past mistakes on the 112 project, the design was to be as easy to build as possible yet 700 km/h (380 kn; 430 mph) was a design goal. To ease production, the new design had considerably fewer parts than the 112 and those that remained contained fewer compound curves. In comparison, the 112 had 2,885 parts and 26,864 rivets, while the P.1035 was made of 969 unique parts with 11,543 rivets. The new straight-edged wing was a source of much of the savings; after building the first wings, Otto Butter reported that the reduction in complexity and rivet count (along with the Butter brothers' own explosive rivet system) saved an astonishing 1,150 man hours per wing. The super-pursuit type was not a secret, but Ernst Heinkel preferred to work in private and publicly display his products only after they were developed sufficiently to make a stunning first impression. As an example of this, the mock-up for the extremely modern-looking He 100 was the subject of company Memo No.3657 on 31 January that stated: "The mock-up is to be completed by us... as of the beginning of May ... and be ready to present to the RLM... and prior to that no one at the RLM is to know of the existence of the mock-up." Walter Günter was killed in a car accident on 25 May 1937, and the design work was taken over by his twin brother Siegfried, who finished the final draft of the design later that year. Heinrich Hertel, a specialist in aircraft structures, also played a prominent role in the design. At the end of October the design was submitted to the RLM, complete with details on prototypes, delivery dates and prices for three aircraft delivered to the Rechlin test center. He 100 should have been designated He 113, but since the number "13" was unlucky, this had been dropped. It is reported that Ernst Heinkel lobbied for this "round" number in the hope that it would improve the design's chances for production. Role Fighter Manufacturer Heinkel Designer Walter Günter, Siegfried Günter First flight 22 January 1938 Retired Never entered operational service Primary user Luftwaffe Number built 25 (including prototypes) Variants Heinkel He 113 (propaganda, never put into service) Throughout the prototype period, the various models were given series designations (as noted above), and presented to the RLM as the basis for series production. The Luftwaffe never took Heinkel up on their offer although the company decided to build a total of 25 of the aircraft one way or the other, so with 10 down, there were another 15 of the latest model to go. In keeping with general practice, any series production is started with a limited run of "zero series", resulting in the He 100 D-0. In 1939, it was reputedly one of the world's most advanced fighter designs, even faster than the later Fw 190, with performance unrivalled until the introduction of the Vought F4U Corsair in 1943, with the similarly-powered Republic XP-47J hitting 505 mph (813 km/h) in early August 1944. Nevertheless, the aircraft was not ordered into production. The reason why the He 100 wasn't put into service seems to vary depending on the person telling the story, and picking any one version results in a firestorm of protest. Some say it was politics that killed the He 100. However, this seems to stem primarily from Heinkel's own telling of the story, which in turn seems to be based on some general malaise over the He 112 debacle. The fact is that Heinkel was well respected within the establishment, regardless of Messerschmitt's success with the Bf 109 and Bf 110, and this argument seems particularly weak. Others blame the bizarre production line philosophy of the RLM, which valued huge numbers of single designs over a mix of different aircraft. This too seems somewhat suspect, considering that the Fw 190 was purchased shortly after this story ends. For these reasons, it seems safe to accept the RLM version of the story largely at face value; that the production problems with the DB series of engines were so acute that all other designs based on the engine were canceled. At the time the DB 601 engines were being used in both the Bf 109 and Bf 110 aircraft, and Daimler couldn't keep up with those demands alone. The RLM eventually forbade anyone but Messerschmitt from receiving any DB 601s, leading to the shelving of many designs from a number of vendors. Furthermore, the Bf 109 and Bf 110 were perceived as superior to their likely opponents, which made the requirement for an even more powerful aircraft less imperative. Specifications (He 100D-1) General characteristics Crew: One (pilot) Length: 8.2 m (26 ft 11 in) Wingspan: 9.4 m (30 ft 10 in) Height: 3.6 m (11 ft 10 in) Wing area: 14.6 m2 (157 sq ft) Empty weight: 1,810 kg (3,990 lb) Max takeoff weight: 2,500 kg (5,512 lb) Powerplant: 1 × Daimler-Benz DB 601M liquid-cooled supercharged V12 piston engine, 864 kW (1,159 hp) Performance Maximum speed: 670 km/h (416 mph; 362 kn) Cruise speed: 552 km/h (343 mph; 298 kn) Range: 1,010 km (628 mi; 545 nmi) Service ceiling: 11,000 m (36,000 ft) Time to altitude: 2.2 minutes to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), 7.9 minutes to 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) 15.2 meters per second Armament Guns: 1 x 20 mm (0.787 in) MG FF cannon and 2 x 7.92 mm (0.312 in) MG 17 machine guns or 20 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 cannon * |
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