Heinkel He 177
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| Heinkel He 177 | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Heavy bomber |
| Manufacturer | Heinkel, also built by Arado Flugzeugwerke |
| Maiden flight | November 1939 |
| Introduced | 1942/1943 |
| Status | retired |
| Primary user | Luftwaffe |
The Heinkel He 177 Greif (Griffin) was a four-engined long-range World War 2 bomber of the Luftwaffe. The troubled aircraft was the only heavy bomber built in large numbers by Germany during the war.
Aircrews nicknamed it the Reichsfeuerzeug (lighter of the Reich) due to the engines' tendency to catch fire in early versions. An unusual feature of the airplane was the use of twin engines in each nacelle driving a single propeller. The twin engine nacelles had first been introduced on the Heinkel He 119 to reduce drag where they worked trouble-free, but their tight installation in the He 177 led to considerable problems. The insistence of this engine configuration on the part of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the German Air Ministry, stemmed directly from their determination that the aircraft should be capable of dive-bombing, a manoeuvre manifestly impossible in craft with four propellers. Starting with He 177A-3, a modified engine nacelle with a new engine (DB610, each containing two DB605s) was used to attempt to eliminate this incendiary tendency, with only partial success.
This insistence on the ability to dive-bomb also led to the need to strengthen the wing structure, leading to an increase in unloaded weight, producing the need to enlarge the undercarriage, in turn increasing further the weight and causing a decrease in speed, range and carrying capacity. The requirement to dive-bomb was never satisfactorily solved, and the He 177 was never able to do this.
Beset by many other technical difficulties in development and service, the plane had a troubled life. This was in part due to overly optimistic design requirements of long range, high speed, a large bombload, and even as a dive bomber. Though Goering forbade Heinkel to develop a version with four separate nacelles, Heinkel did anyway, leading to the development of the Heinkel He 274 and the Heinkel He 277 which had a more commonly seen engine arrangement.
The use of the He 177 was ended by the Fighter Emergency Program, which cancelled bomber production and operations and gave priority to defensive fighters in the final stages of the war. The He 274 prototype was completed after the war in France, but no series production took place.
The overly ambitious design goals included an unrealistic requirement for a dive bombing capability, similar to the RAF's equally unrealistic requirement for catapult launching for the failed Avro Manchester heavy bomber. The attempt to reduce drag by coupling the engines, while theoretically sound, proved to be difficult in practice, leading to a history of engine failures not unlike that of the failed Manchester or that of the B-29, which had most of its defensive armament removed in order to lighten the burden on its engines and thus improve reliability.
[edit] Variants
- He 177 V1 - First prototype
- He 177A-1
- He 177A-3
- He 177A-3/R3 - Anti-shipping version
- He 177A-3/R5 - 75 mm gun in ventral gondola
- He 177A-3/R7 - Torpedo Bomber
- He 177A-5 - Increased maximum external bombload
- He-177 A-6 long range bomber with increased bombload and armament(defensive)
Production Numbers: Over 1000, of which none is known to exist today.
[edit] Specifications (He 177 A-5)
General characteristics
- Crew: 5
- Length: 72 ft 2 in (22 m)
- Wingspan: 103 ft 1 in (31,44 m)
- Height: 21 ft (6,7 m)
- Wing area: 1,092 ft² (101.5 m²)
- Empty weight: 16,800 kg (37,000 lb)
- Loaded weight: 31,000 kg (68,340 lb)
- Powerplant: 2× Daimler-Benz DB 610 (contains 2x DB 605 each) 24-cylinder straight engines, 2,950 hp (2,170 kW) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: 350 mph at 21,000 ft (565 km/h at 6,100 m)
- Combat radius: 960 mi (1.540 km)
- Ferry range: 3.200 mi (5.600 km)
- Service ceiling: 30,800 ft (9,400 m)
- Wing loading: 65.6 lb/ft² (319.9 kg/m²)
- Power/mass: 0.067 hp/lb (110 W/kg)
Armament
- 2 x 20 mm MG 151 cannon
- 3 x MG 131 machine gun
- 3 x MG 81 machine gun
- up to 7,200 kg of bombs or two guided missiles Henschel Hs 293 or Fritz X
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