Heinkel He177 Greif

Some footage here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb9QSMOjsrA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj_ge-WoUyc

A thought has struck me maybe my mother was bombed out by an He 177 in the winter/spring of 1943-44 (I will have to speak to her about the date) – at the time she was a young teenager living with her parents and brother (who was out when the bomb hit) at 106 Elstree Gardens in Belvedere, nr Erith. She had been evacuated a couple of times, but had drifted back, only to be evacuated again when the V1s started. In the little Blitz she claims that the Germans were trying to bomb the invasion barges moored off Erith marshes (or were German crews just dropping their bombs on the edge of London and turning for home?).

One night she was standing in one of the upstairs front bedrooms with her father watching the desultory bombing when the bomb hit. The houses were early 30’s(?) houses built in blocks of four and my grand parents house was one of the central terraced ones in a block. The bomb demolished the next block of four (it was obvious in the sixties, when I remember it, that the rebuilt block differed from the others in the row). My grandfather was behind my mother and tried to push her to the floor, but of course was too slow and the glass from the window left some small scars in her face that were still visible decades later (she is too wrinkled today!), my late father always referred to it as her “war damage”! Shielded by my mother, my grandfather was cut rather less. My grandmother found herself blown into the cupboard under the stairs but was otherwise unharmed. Picking themselves up amongst the glass and plaster the first challege that they faced was to get around the front door, which was lodged at the top of the stairs… Only one elderly man was killed – my mother says that it was because his false teeth were blown down his throat – mmm!

What do you think He-177 or not?

Would have made quite a different story I think

yes quite a different story most decidely so!this baby was on the drawing board and prototyped long before the lanc was created! had they chosen 4 seperate engines rather than coupled twins. 😎 😎

It seems the He177 may be another victim of…how can I put it…’everybody knows about that one’! :diablo:

Got reading this last night on some other forum (surely not)…

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=58834

…I seem to ‘recognise’ one or two of those forumites! 😀

Well it aint me!!;) This forum is all I got time for!!!:D

It seems the He177 may be another victim of…how can I put it…’everybody knows about that one’! :diablo:

Got reading this last night on some other forum (surely not)…

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=58834

…I seem to ‘recognise’ one or two of those forumites! 😀

I remember hearing that a group had recovered parts from a lake in Germany that crashed there during the war. Not sure what happened to them.

Would have made quite a different story I think

If only the He177 had gone to four engines (I mean four nacelles) as quickly as the Lancaster (Manchester) did. 😉

Thanks Sea Hawk I couldn’t remember the dimensions. Strange how closely those figures resemble the Lancaster.- Span: He177 – 103 feet, Lancater 102 Length: He177 – 67 feet for a round figure, Lancaster 69 feet. Height: He 177 – 20 feet, Lancaster 19’6″. So similar but one was a bit of a disaster while the other was a roaring success.

Hardly surprising when you consider it is actually a pair if inverted V engines mated together side by side.

There is a DB610 engine unit at Wroughton (I attached a photo of this to the Wroughton thread). According to the BAPC list the RAFM also has a pair – one at Cosford and one at Hendon, which I cannot recall seeing, but maybe that is me.

i saw this engine on a recent visit to cosford with a partial cowl and engine barers if i remember correctly…. tis an ugly beast…!

Have done a little web research, this: http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/db605.htm quotes a 2800 rpm engine speed.

Also found this: http://www.pilotfriend.com/photo_albums/timeline/ww2/Heinkel%20He%20177.htm

Creaking Door and Super Sioux, many thanks for your info. The props are actually a good bit smaller than I would have expected to make best use of the power available. I was thinking of 17-18 feet. There you go, just proves what I know(or don’t as the case may be)

Here we ago again!

Educate me please. Who were AGO, I’ve never heard of them, or would I perhaps know them by their full name?

Mike , the name Ago derived originally from the initial letters of the company founded in 1911 by german aviation pioneer Gustav Otto. Then named Aeroplanbau G.Otto und Alberti, it was renamed Aerowerke Gustav Otto in early 1912 and, later that year , became Ago Flugzeugwerke GmbH. They built a small number of designs during World War1
They next appear in my literature during ‘Blitz Week’ when a force of Eighth Bomber Command USAAF B-17’s of the 4th Wing ,120 in all , bombed in the longest penetration of Germany to date a place called Ago- Flugzeugwerke Gmbh at Ochersleben. (90 miles /145kms southwest of Berlin).
They appear to be sub contractors to the German aircraft industry.

Not a bad estimate! Propellers actually 14 feet 10 inch diameter (4.52 metres).

My guess is that the reduction ratio would be quite high, say 2.0:1 to about 2.2:1 due to the high power of engines.

Given the diameter of the prop and the fact that most engines of the peiod were ‘red lined’ at about 3000 rpm it would have to be quite high I would imagine. Having said that I don’t know what the dianmeter of the props was. Judging by their size in comparison with the known dimensions of the aircraft I reckon they must have about 16 feet dia. or more.

I don’t suppose anybody has any idea what the propeller reduction ratio was for the He177?

Not quite, my good man. The Bf 109 and He 112 were direct competitors, and the He 112 was found to be severely wanting in flight tests against the faster and more agile Bf 109. As with all things involving the Nazi gov’t, there was a definite political undertone… in this instance, the head of the Luftwaffe procurement office, Erhard Milch, absolutely loathed Willy Messerschmitt due to a series of fatal crashes of his M20 airliner while in Lufthansa service, which caused a great deal of ill will towards the airline. And who was the head of Lufthansa at the time? Yep, good old Erhard Milch. He was forced to acknowledge the superiority of the 109 to the 112 and production contracts were awarded to Messerschmitt, with satellite production being arranged by other facilities including Focke-Wulf, Arado, and AGO.

The He 100 was in fact a superior design to the 109 (especially in the gear design), but by the time the He 100 was being tested, all of the production infrastructure had been put in place for the 109, so no orders were forthcoming. Believe it or not, the Germans had to pay for everything just like everyone else (at least prewar), and they couldn’t afford to split production capacity at the time.

As to the 177, the much-maligned “Reichsfeuerzeug”, that still stands as the “perfect storm” of unintended consequences due to overengineering. My favorite design “feature” on the aircraft is the oil tank for the DB 610 which was mounted to the magnesium firewall. Vibrations from the inherently wobbly DB 610 would be transmitted back through the engine bearers to the firewall and assorted framing, and the oil tank would develop small fractures, allowing oil to drip down. No biggie, right? Well, due to the inverted V engine design, the inboard banks of cylinders shared a central exhaust manifold exiting from the lower end of the nacelle… directly below the aforementioned oil tank. It doesn’t take a degree in aeronautical engineering to forecast what came next… oil drops down, catches fire on the manifold, which then spreads to the magnesium firewall, and voila… it’s parachute time!

Drag reduction by coupling engines is all well and good in theory, but I’d say the benefits were far outweighed by the catastrophic design failures encountered. And I’d venture to say that Ernst Heinkel would likely agree with that, were he around today.

Lynn

fascinating ,infomative info thankyou very much for your contribution
regards vic:cool:

Educate me please. Who were AGO, I’ve never heard of them, or would I perhaps know them by their full name?

As with MiG and Sukhoi one produces the best aircraft the other gets the contracts, hence the reason the soviet forces had more Sukhoi aircraft than MiG. So it was with Heinkel. Apparently the Heinkel 100 series was a better performer on the power plant fitted than the Me 109 but the contract was awarded to Messerschmidt even before the fly off.

Not quite, my good man. The Bf 109 and He 112 were direct competitors, and the He 112 was found to be severely wanting in flight tests against the faster and more agile Bf 109. As with all things involving the Nazi gov’t, there was a definite political undertone… in this instance, the head of the Luftwaffe procurement office, Erhard Milch, absolutely loathed Willy Messerschmitt due to a series of fatal crashes of his M20 airliner while in Lufthansa service, which caused a great deal of ill will towards the airline. And who was the head of Lufthansa at the time? Yep, good old Erhard Milch. He was forced to acknowledge the superiority of the 109 to the 112 and production contracts were awarded to Messerschmitt, with satellite production being arranged by other facilities including Focke-Wulf, Arado, and AGO.

The He 100 was in fact a superior design to the 109 (especially in the gear design), but by the time the He 100 was being tested, all of the production infrastructure had been put in place for the 109, so no orders were forthcoming. Believe it or not, the Germans had to pay for everything just like everyone else (at least prewar), and they couldn’t afford to split production capacity at the time.

As to the 177, the much-maligned “Reichsfeuerzeug”, that still stands as the “perfect storm” of unintended consequences due to overengineering. My favorite design “feature” on the aircraft is the oil tank for the DB 610 which was mounted to the magnesium firewall. Vibrations from the inherently wobbly DB 610 would be transmitted back through the engine bearers to the firewall and assorted framing, and the oil tank would develop small fractures, allowing oil to drip down. No biggie, right? Well, due to the inverted V engine design, the inboard banks of cylinders shared a central exhaust manifold exiting from the lower end of the nacelle… directly below the aforementioned oil tank. It doesn’t take a degree in aeronautical engineering to forecast what came next… oil drops down, catches fire on the manifold, which then spreads to the magnesium firewall, and voila… it’s parachute time!

Drag reduction by coupling engines is all well and good in theory, but I’d say the benefits were far outweighed by the catastrophic design failures encountered. And I’d venture to say that Ernst Heinkel would likely agree with that, were he around today.

Lynn