Heinkel He 100D-0 by Special Hobby

1/72 scale
Kit No. 72115
Cost: $25.00
Decals: By Aviprint
Comments: Engraved panel lines; cockpit features photo-etch details; injection molded one-piece canopy, detailed landing gear with radial tread tires

History

The Heinkel He 100 was a German pre-World War II fighter design by Ernst Heinkel that was intended as a replacement for the very successful Messerschmitt Bf 109. Despite setting a world speed record, a strong piece of evidence that it would have been a superb fighter, the He 100 never went into production, even thought it was one of the fastest fighter aircraft in the world at the time of its development.  Nineteen prototypes and pre-production examples were built, although Joseph Goebbels Nazi propaganda machine worked hard to create the impression in the late 1930’s that hundreds were rolling off the assembly lines, a bit of smoke-and-mirrors that contributed to the 1938 Munich Agreement.  None of the 19 prototypes are known to have survived the war.

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. This dashed Heinkel’s hopes of marketing a fighter to the Luftwaffe almost for the entire duration of WWII.

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. Nevertheless the 12 He 100D-1’s built were eventually flown by Luftwaffe pilots as home-defence fighters. Power was provided by a Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine. On March 30, 1939 He 100V8 set a new world absolute speed record of 746.604km/h (463 mph) at the hands of Flugkapitan Hans Dieterle.

In order to get the promised performance out of the aircraft, the design included a number of drag-reducing features. On the simple end was a well-faired cockpit, the absence of struts and other drag-inducing supports on the tail. The landing gear (including the tailwheel) was retractable and completely enclosed in flight. A major challenge was the serious shortage of advanced aircraft engines in Germany during the late 1930s. The He 100 used the same Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Bf 110, and there was insufficient capacity to support another aircraft using the same engine.

To reduce weight and frontal area, the engine was mounted directly to the forward fuselage, which was strengthened and literally tailored to the DB 601, as opposed to conventional mounting on engine bearers. The cowling was very tight-fitting, and as a result the aircraft has something of a slab-sided appearance. In order to provide as much power as possible from the DB 601, the He 100 used exhaust ejectors for a small amount of additional thrust. The supercharger inlet was moved from the normal position on the side of the cowling to a location in the leading edge of the left wing.

One aspect of the original Projekt 1035 (as Heinkel termed the He 100) was the intent to capture the absolute speed record for Heinkel and Germany. Both Messerschmitt and Heinkel vied for this record before the war. Messerschmitt ultimately won that battle with the first prototype of the Me 209, but the He 100 briefly held the record when Heinkel test pilot Hans Dieterle flew the eighth prototype to 746.606 km/h (463.919 mph) on March 30, 1939. The record flight was made using a special version of the DB 601 engine that offered 2,010 kW (2,700 hp) and had a service life of just 30 minutes.

Although the RLM placed no orders, Heinkel continued to develop the plane as a fighter to encourage them to do so. While the aircraft didn’t match its design goal of 700 km/h (430 mph) once it was loaded down with weapons, a larger canopy and the radiator, it was still capable of speeds in the 644 km/h (400 mph) range. The He 100’s low drag airframe gave it both a speed advantage and a combat range between 900 to 1,000 km (560 to 620 mi) compared to the Bf 109’s 600 km (370 mi) — these were two clear indicators of the He 100’s superiority. While not in the same league as later Allied escort fighters, its performance figures were at the time superb, and might have offset the need for the Bf 110 to some degree. The logical explanation is that politics played a role in killing the He 100; Willy Messerschmitt is widely acknowledged as being more politicially wired into the Nazi hierarchy than was Ernst Heinkel. In any event, the RLM’s so-called “rationalization policy” benefitted Messerschmitt, who had every reason to want to corner the market on fighter production for the Luftwaffe.

For those who doubt the “politics” scenario, the fact that production capacity for the Daimler Benz 601 could not meet the demands of two different fighter production lines clearly pointed to only one standard fighter being possible in the Luftwaffe inventory — that much is common knowledge. What remains odd is that the RLM kept the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in production and sidelined the He 100, after flight tests and the breaking of the world speed record proved that the He 100 was the superior fighter design.

Germany was essentially a “plunder” economy, plagued with finite production resources throughout 1930’s and the duration of the war, including a shortage of aircraft engines for its war machine. The RLM would go further and eventually forbid the DB 601 powerplant from being provided to any firm other than Messerschmitt’s because there were no other available powerplants, and the paramount concern was to assure a supply of engines for the Bf 109. While production of the Focke Wulf Fw 190 was approved just a few months after the demise of the He 100 program, a key factor in that decision was the Fw 190’s radial engine, which placed no demands on production of the in-line DB 601 , and therefore posed no direct threat to Messerschmitt.

Images such as this one created the false impression that the highly modern He 100 had entered Luftwaffe service, and helped intimidate France and Britain in particular in the months just prior to the outbreak of war.

Propaganda Value

In 1940 the He 100’s were publicized by Germany’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in a series of newsreels aimed at convincing foreign powers that a new fighter was entering service with the Luftwaffe. The plan involved taking pictures and films of the remaining D-1’s at different air bases around Germany, each time sporting a new paint job for various fictional fighter groups. The pictures were then published in the press with the He 113 name, sometimes billed as night fighters, and the newsreels were distributed to theatres throughout Germany.

The plane also appeared in a series of “action shot” photographs in various magazines like Der Adler, including claims that it had proven itself in combat in Denmark and Norway. One source even claimed that the planes were on loan to the one Luftwaffe staffel in Norway for a time. The deception was effective, giving Britain and France in particular the impression that the Luftwaffe was more powerful than it actually was. British intelligence featured the plane in AIR 40/237, a 1940 assessment of Luftwaffe strength. In it, the top speed was listed as 390 mph, and it noted that the plane was in production. Reports of 113’s encountered and shot down were listed throughout the early years of the war.

The remaining twelve He 100D-1c fighters were used to form Heinkel’s Marienehe factory defense unit, flown by factory test pilots. They replaced the earlier He 112’s that were used for the same purpose, and the 112’s were later sold off. At this early stage in the war there were no bombers venturing that far into Germany, and it appears that the unit never saw action. The eventual fate of the D-1’s remains unknown.

The Kit

Special Hobby’s He 100 is injection molded in grey plastic and features photo-etch detail parts for the cockpit, including a PE instrument panel with a film insert, seat straps, and accents for the rudder pedals. The cockpit assembly includes a floor with raised detail, plain bucket seat, and a “donut” control yoke of the type more often seen on RAF fighters of the period. The kit features boxed in wheel wells and individually mounted propeller blades on the airscrew.

The kit’s separately mounted vertical tail and horizontal stabilizers are each a single piece. The landing gear are fairly detailed with radial tread tires, PE details, and all of the main gear doors are photo-etch parts. There is a small, rectangular belly-mounted radiator, and optional position canopy (although the instructions make clear that to display the canopy in the open position, you will have to cut it with a hobby knife — only for the highly skilled or very confident.

Decals

The paint guide calls out Gunze Sangyo colors only, and the high quality Aviprint decals provide markings for one of three He 100 prototypes (White 5, White 8, or White 13) each in a splinter camouflage scheme of RLM 70 Schwarzgrun (Black Green) and RLM 71 Dunkelgrun (Dark Green) over RLM 65 Lichtblau (Light Blue).

Conclusion

This is quite a detailed kit for the scale, and surprisingly small. Fully assembled, it will barely come to five inches in length, dimunitive even for 1/72 scale — providing an idea of how hard the He 100 would have been to see, let alone hit, in a dogfight. A quality kit. Highly recommended.

An artist’s rendition of the Heinkel He 100, had it entered Luftwaffe service. This image could have been commissioned by Heinkel himself, for he was never above self-promotion: another Heinkel aircraft, the He 115 seaplane, is in the background.

References

• www.aviastar.org
• military.wikia.com
• centuryofflight.net