Home

» Equipment

» Aircraft

» He 112





He 112

Country Germany Manufacturer Heinkel Flugzeugwerke Primary Role Fighter

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe He 112 fighters were designed by Walter and Siegfried Günter at Heinkel as the response to Luftwaffe's call for designs for a fighter contract. Luftwaffe demanded a monoplane fighter that could attain a high speed, which the He 112 design fulfilled, but the contract eventually went to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 design due to He 112's expensive price tag and perhaps partially due to the crashes during performance review. There were some controversial arguments on why the Bf 109 design beat out the He 112, including Messerschmitt's more capable political machine as well as bad management by the project manager Heinrich Hertel. Whatever the true reason was, executives at Heinkel continued to develop the design, believing that even if the Luftwaffe did not select the model, foreign air forces would. Prototype V9 was flown by pilots from all over the world in late 1937 for that precise reason, and orders soon came in. Four aircraft were shipped to the Japanese Navy in Dec 1937 to counter the Russian fighters flown by Chinese pilots, and 12 went to Spain in between Nov 1937 and Apr 1938 after observing the potentials of He 112s. In Jun 1938, Hungary evaluated the aircraft and later decided to purchase three. Finally, in Apr 1939, Romania placed an order for 24, then increased the order by another six aircraft on 18 Aug; some of these aircraft were flown by Romanian pilots against their Russian counterparts during Operation Barbarossa. There were interests from other nations, but the high price tag prevented governments such as Finland and the Netherlands to make the purchase. When the design was becoming outperformed by other designs, including one of Heinkel's own, the production line closed down. During the design's production life, a total of 98 units were produced.

ww2dbaseSource: Wikipedia.

Last Major Revision: Aug 2006

He 112 Timeline

14 Jul 1939 Royal Romanian Air Force began operating the German-built He 112 fighters. 18 Aug 1939 Romania placed an additional order to purchase 6 more German He 112 fighters. 19 Jul 1942 A He 112 fighter of Romanian Escadrila 51 Vanatoare squadron flew the very first night fighter mission in Romanian history.

SPECIFICATIONS

He 112A-0 V4



Machinery One Junkers Jumo 210Da liquid-cooled inverted V-12 engine rated at 680hp Armament 3x7.92mm MG17 Crew 1 Span 11.50 m Length 9.00 m Height 3.70 m Wing Area 23.20 m² Weight, Empty 1,680 kg Speed, Maximum 488 km/h Service Ceiling 8,000 m Range, Normal 1,100 km

He 112B-2



Machinery One Junkers Jumo 210Ga liquid-cooled inverted V-12 engine rated at 700hp Armament 2x7.92mm MG17, 2x20mm MG FF cannons Span 9.09 m Length 9.22 m Height 3.82 m Wing Area 17.00 m² Weight, Empty 1,617 kg Weight, Maximum 2,248 kg Speed, Maximum 510 km/h Service Ceiling 9,500 m Range, Normal 1,150 km

Photographs

Did you enjoy this article? Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even $1 per month will go a long way! Thank you. Share this article with your friends: Facebook

Reddit

Twitter

Stay updated with WW2DB: RSS Feeds