Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

HEINKEL He 280
Type: Single-seat prototype interceptor
Length: 10.40m (34.125ft)
Span: 12.20m (40.00ft)
Max take-off weight: 4310kg (9502lb)
Max speed: 900km/h (560mph} at 6000m
(19,700ft)
which brought air to the engine (which, along with its
tailpipe, occupied most of the rest of the fuselage). It
made its first true flight on 27 August 1939, having
'hopped' along the runway three days earlier. This
pre-dated the maiden flight of the Gloster E.28/39,
powered by Frank Whittle's engine, which had in its
turn pre-dated Chain's original effort, by over 20
months. The He 178 was demonstrated to the RLM on
1 November. Almost incredibly, there was virtually
no official interest, and it (along with the He 176) was
consigned to the Berlin Air Museum, where both
were destroyed in an air raid in 1943.
THE HEINKEL He 280
Heinkel abandoned the He 178 largely because of
technical problems associated with mounting the
engine within the fuselage, but did not give up hope
of developing a turbojet-powered fighter. New blood
in the shape of Max Mueller arrived from Jumo to pep
up the jet engine development programme. He
worked on the the HeS 30, which became the 109-
006. The 109- prefix was employed, somewhat confusingly,
for both pulse-jet and turbojet engines and
also for rocket motors; the three-figure designator following
was allocated chronologically, and there is no
logical distinction between one manufacturer and
another. Thankfully, there were few enough engine
types, so one soon became familiar with the rather
impersonal system.
Simultaneous with Mueller's work was that of
Pabst von Ohain who developed the HeS 3 as the HeS
8 (109-001). Both engines were to be tested in an allnew
airframe, the He 280. This was a twin-engined
aircraft, its powerplants slung beneath the low wings
in nacelles and with a high tailplane with a fin and
Range: 650km (404 miles)
Armament: 3 x 20mm MG 151 cannon
Above: The second Heinkel jet, the He 280, was
successful, but lost out in competition with the
JET AIRCRAFT
M esse rsc h mitt Me 262. Just nine examples were built
rudder at each tip. It made its first powered flight with
von Ohain's engines on 2 April 1941, and was demonstrated
to the Luftwaffe and RLM three days later.
Now the reaction was different. The immediate
result was that Heinkel's engine division expanded in
size with the addition of his old partner Hirth's company
(which made piston engines and turbo-chargers
amongst other things). Mueller and his team moved to
the Hirth factory at Stuttgart, and von Ohain stayed at
Rostock-Marienehe to work on a further development
of his engine, the 109-011, which was projected to
give 1300kg (28661b) of static thrust. There was
understandable rivalry between the two teams and
both made considerable progress, but for some unaccountable
reason, the RLM decided to order work on
the 109-006 to be discontinued, even though it was
already producing 900kg (19841b) of thrust. Meanwhile,
development of the Oil continued at Stuttgart,
but even by the end of the war, it had never run except
on a test bench and just 20 had been completed. Testing
of the He 280 continued with both Jumo 004 and
BMW 003 engines, but when it eventually came up
against the Me 262, it fared badly. There are suggestions
that the decision to adopt the Me 262 was at
least partly politically motivated, since, as we have
noted, the relationship between the various German
planemakers themselves, and with the RLM and the
Luftwaffe, was a political minefield. The nine prototypes
constructed were later used for testing new
wing and tail designs and Heinkel later worked on
other jet aircraft designs, most of them centred on the
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