⚜ | The He-100 - Germany's Lost Wunderwaffe ?

March 1939 a German plane takes off to attempt The Impossible and beat the mythical 79.2 km an hour speed record set up by the Italian Franchesco aguelo 5 years earlier following 1944 attempts had been made around the world to break this barrier but none had succeeded to impress the federo aeronautic interational but while most attempts had been made by PL specifically designed to set the ultimate speed record this time it was different as the German aircraft climbed to towards the starting line it was clear to the designers that this very design was ready for mass production as the new mainstream fighter of the Luft wff this plane was the Hano 100 and its final recorded speed 7466 km an hour so one might ask what happened what is the history of this plane and why did it although on the surface ready for mass production in tuned for incredible speed years ahead of any real opposition at the time not end up replacing the BF 109 this and More in today's episode the hanle 100 is a direct consequence out of the earlier competition between the BF 109 and the Han 112 in the mid 1930s making the cut the 109 was adopted as the Luft Raff's mainstream fighter hle nowadays more known for as bombers was not pleased he thought he could do better and set off to prod an aircraft so fast that the LOF Rover would be forced to accept his design speed speed and speed this is What mattered and the faster the better no compromise no surrender the record had to be beaten by a plain fit to serve the armed forces in 1938 the first prototype Hano 100 rolled off the production line and initial problems were addressed powered by the daband 6001 AA the same engine as the Contemporary 109 the hle 100 was slowly gearing up to show its older cousin the true definition of speed in June 38 the hle 100 V2 was ready to make its first attempt at the speed record coincidentally ger Lu M an udat arrived moments before and without being properly breathed decided to make the attempt himself forcing The Chosen pilot out of the spotlight he took off flew the course landed clambering out of his cockpit sweating and traumatized he was met by an ecstatic crowd he had managed to push the hle 100 to 634 k an hour faster than the B of 109 only later could he tell the engineers that during the whole flight every single warning light in the cockpit had screamed at him to stop although hanle designed various prototypes as the eventual production run of the hanle 100 Fighter the V8 was eventually chosen to make the attempt to beat the red line of 709 km an hour it was air dynamically tuned to Perfection given a special Fu mixture and had a smaller wingspan to be safe and additional cooler was installed as we know now the record was soundly beaten in March 1949 so why then did the Hanka 100 not make the cut several stories and interpretations exist some claimed that mmid had the Luft WAFF in his pocket off say that hangle was pleased enough of his bommer contact and lost interest in the hle 100 other stories talk about the plan's lack in Armament that was inferior to the 109 at the time truth be told the real reasons are somewhere in the middle and more complex than that before we turn our attention to the actual plane design we must not forget a few things first while the hle 100 was faster than the B of 109 the 109 was still ahead of nearly all foreign competitors in 1939 only the Contemporary Spitfire was able to balance out the 109 in some ways this situation did change as the war progressed and while the Allies started to produce top-notch aircraft the 109 as a plane although starting to show our age stayed competitive through brute force during the campaigns in 1949 and 19 40 the 109 was also proven to be combat effective and that with more fire power than what was planned for the hle 100 changing the production run to the hanle 100 then would have been a higher risk scenario Additionally the parallel production of both planes was not possible both aircraft had the same engine of which there were never enough changing the Han 100's power clant would cost months and decrease her performance significantly last but not least the initial split between Mesa Schmid as the fighter producer and H as the Maestro of bummers was still in effect both enjoyed support from the Luft buffer but were supposed to complement each other not be competitors in fact when mmid broke H's record with the EM 209 just a month after the hanle 100 success this was seen as a confirmation that the old balance still holds true of course just like the me 209 the hle 100 was still exploited for propaganda purposes appearing multiple times during the war in Publications it was always is touted as a significant asset of the current or of the future l ruffer in fact the propaganda use of the Hano 100 goes back to 1938 when uded accidentally showed off the plane to some French officers on a visit to oranburg as the story goes when the French officers cautiously approached the Hano 100 which had just given them a demonstration of its speed they touched its wings and burned themselves and this is where we turn to the origin of the hanle 100 speed and it's ultimate Achilles heal in order to achieve a clean profile of the aircraft but still utilize the Dian 6001 AA of the 109 the hle designers developed a special cooling system that for people like me with limited engineering knowledge sounds close to Magic essentially as the cooling water for the engine was used it was pressurized allowing it to heat to 110° C without turning into steam once released it would as it were chill out and become steam this steam was forced into the wings cooling down to a liquid state and thus reintroduced into the engine as a coolant it speaks a lot for the designers at the time that they managed to create this cooling system that as far as the engine was concerned did its job really well even though the heat produced was enough to set off warning lamps here and there yet while they succeeded with the water cooling they were still forced to construct a small oil cooler of the traditional sort now all of this sounds rather nice no drag by a big water radiator is good after all but the problem was that the Han 100 was not a drag racer nor a plane designed to let rich people Dart around the country site no it was supposed to be a fighter employed in any and every condition that were forced upon it from the temperate Plains of Europe to The Bleak steps of Russia over to the harsh desert of Africa inline engines are notoriously riing on their cooling to work properly to the point where a single bullet lodged in a radiator could mean that one might have to rtb at the Double Imagine The hanle 100 on Under Fire we don't have a centralized location for the cooling that could be susceptible to fire that be true but that is because the whole plane is essentially a massive cooling structure the Battle of Britain has many examples of 109's returning home with many little holes in their wings imagine a hle 100 squaring off against any fighter even those firing nothing but rifle caliber ammunition a few hits to the right part of the wing and you immediately have leak and maybe just not one but multiple considering that speed can only do so much that even faster planes were regularly shut down by slower aircraft during the course of World War II the blistering speed of the Prototype hle 100 which would be somewhat different to the production around H 100 that much as clear is not a defense of any sort so while the deciding factors of the eventual dismissal of the hanle 100 will probably never be fully known the combination of reasons both logistical and Technical show a clear picture the hanle 100 was simply never meant to fight I hope that you enjoyed this video video and learn something about the more obscure aircraft of World War II if you did award me with an iron Crosswire that like button or don't that's fair enough as well and if you want you can also support these videos on patreon as always have a great day good hunting and see you the [Music] sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 1,782,770

Keywords: He, 100, Wunderwaffe, Germany, Luftwaffe, WW2, History, Education

Id: 1GSJgvGNgjQ

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016