Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

JET AIRCRAFT
developed during World War IT in Germany were to
be powered by either turbojet or rocket motors, in
both of which German scientists and engineers
excelled, but as we shall see, the jet engine programme
in particular was to get off to a very slow
start. Had the optimism of the jet pioneers been justified,
we might well have seen a different outcome to
the war, a prolongation, perhaps, into the autumn and
winter of 1945, which might have resulted in the
nuclear bombs used against Japan being dropped on
German cities, too. When it was so evident that the jet
aircraft was going to be so vitally important, it comes
as something of a surprise to see that the timescale of
its development was so extended. As a result,
although Germany had a very clear lead in the field,
she squandered it, thanks largely to poor overall control
of the research and development programme.
THEHEINKELHe178
The name Heinkel deserves to figure high in any list
of notable achievements in aviation, for it was from
Ernst Heinkel's design studio, and specifically from
the drawing boards of twin brothers Siegfried and
Walter Günter, that the first practical thrust-powered
aircraft - the rocket-propelled He 176 and the turbojet-powered
He 178 - were to come. Heinkel himself,
with partner Hellmuth Hirth, had enjoyed considerable
success with the Albatros aircraft, especially the
B.I, during World War I. He struggled through the
dark days of the 1920s and came to prominence again
with a commercial aircraft, the Giinter-designed He
70 and, using that as a stepping-stone, produced
arguably the most effective bomber of its day, the He
111, which first flew in early 1935. Heinkel continued
to develop successful piston-engined aircraft, but his
10
HEINKEL He 178
Type: Single-seat research aircraft
Length: 7.51 m (24.54ft)
Wing area: 7.90rri2 (85.04sq ft))
Max weight: 1990kg (4387lb)
interest also turned to the emerging technology of
rocketry. There had been thrust-powered flights -
Fritz Stammer flew a solid-fuel rocket-powered glider
for the first time on 11 June 1928 - but it took
almost a further decade and the development of liquid-fuelled
motors to make it a practical proposition,
as we shall discover in Chapter Two when we come to
examine rocket-propelled aircraft.
Rocket motors, while they could hardly be called
'tried and tested' by 1938, were simple in the
extreme; far more complicated, but offering huge
advantages in terms of fuel economy and controllability,
was the revolutionary new turbojet powerplant
on which Heinkel's engineer, Joachim Pabst von
Ohain, and his assistant Max Hahn, were working in
secret. Lured away from Göttingen University, where
they had done their pioneering work, the pair produced
a first demonstration prototype, the HeS 1,
which ran only on hydrogen (and was only barely
controllable) to produce about 250kg (55()lb) of static
thrust, in September 1937. By the time six more
months had passed, they had made considerable
progress, and had produced the petrol-fuelled HeS 3,
which developed 500kg (HOOlb) of thrust. This, they
believed, was a practical - if only marginally - powerplant,
and the next step was to produce an airframe
in which to mount it.
The result of their efforts was the He 178, the
world's first jet-propelled aircraft. It was a shoulderwing
monoplane with its cockpit well forward of the
wing leading edge, where it sat above the ducting
Below: The Heinkel He 178, despite its shortcomings, was
the first jet-powered aircraft to fly successfully, on 27
August 1939, 20 months before Britain's Gloster E.28/39.
Max speed: estimated 580km/h (360mph)
at sea level
Range: N/A
Armament: None