WesWorld

Here's the WW He-100A. Note that it's not exactly the same as the historical aircraft, being a bit larger and heavier (wingspan and length are both several feet longer), and the initial engine is a bit more powerful than historical (it's using the DB-601N vs the DB-601Aa). The look is the same as the historical aircraft, though, and like the historical He-100D it uses normal radiator cooling with an underfuselage radiator.


Aircraft Type or Name:

Heinkel He-100 A-1

General Type:
Airplane = 1
Airship = 2
Orbiter = 3
1

Year of First Flight: 1939

Description

Carrier or Rough Field
Monoplane
Conventional Fuselage

The WW version of the He-100D, equipped with 2 15mm MG-151 heavy machineguns in the wing roots and 2 7.92mm MG-17s in the nose decking, a 10mm armored seat for the pilot (+130 pounds), and self-sealing fuel tanks (+96 pounds).






Characteristics:

Weight (maximum) 6,000 lbs
Weight (empty) 4,957 lbs

Length 29 ft
Wingspan 33 ft
Wing Area 177 sq ft
Sweep 1 degrees

Engines 1
DB-601N
Piston

1,220 hp
at 16,000 ft


Crew 1


Typical cost $0.030 million in 1939
Total number procured 2000


Performance:

Top Speed 359 kts = 413 mph
at 16,000 ft
Mach N/A

Operational Ceiling 40,000 ft

Range 600 nm = 691 miles
with 280 lbs payload
292 lbs released at halfway point

Climb 3,103 fpm

Cruise 250 kts = 288 mph
at 28,000 ft

Corner Speed 247 KIAS =
316 kts at 16,000 ft
Mach N/A
Turning Rate 22.4 deg/sec
Radius 2,733 ft



Internal Data:

Intake / Fan Diameter 9.5 ft

Bypass Ratio 87

Engine Weight 1210 lbs
Overall Efficiency 22.5 percent

Structural Factor 1.00

Number of Wings 1
Number of Fuselages 1

Limiting Airspeed 450 kts
Wing Ultimate g Load 10.00 g
Wing Taper 0.2
Wing Thickness at Root 1 ft

Tail / Canard Factor 0.4

Number of Nacelles 0
Length 9 ft
Diameter 3.25 ft
Fullness 0.45

Fuselage Diameter 3.75 ft
Fuselage Fullness 0.35

Pressurized Volume 0 percent
Cargo Decks 0

Cleanness 85 percent
Unstreamlined section 1.15 sq ft

User equipment 1,050 lbs

I think the stats planebuilder gives out are a bit optimistic. You've got a plane larger, heavier and draggier than the historical one but with the same or better performance.

Making it larger is probably a good thing as the historical version was a little tight.

The DB601N improves power at low altitudes, at higher altitude the power is 1175@4900m similar to the earlier A series for 590kg.

Self-Sealing tanks for the P-39 weighed 109kg so a similar value here.

With the addition of armour, increased armament, a proper radiator and the extra size of the plane I'd estimate a speed of between 380 and 390mph.

A revised version of the WW He-100A. The reduction in power at altitude cut the top speed a bit, but not a huge amount. Kaiser Kirk and I did a bit of research a while back on self-sealing fuel tanks and came up with a rule of thumb for them: 20% of the protected fuel weight (which isn't too bad on short-ranged aircraft but gets to be pretty heavy pretty fast on heavy bombers or patrol planes).

On the top speed, I'm not so sure that this version would be that much slower than the original. Why? Because I've got a He-100D in Planebuilder that's EXACTLY right, and there are IS one difference in this version that will lower drag: the wing thickness at the root is thinner. It makes the plane a bit heavier, but it does make it faster. Keep in mind that the D series aircraft historically had radiator, not evaporative, cooling and had a top speed of about 416 mph.


Aircraft Type or Name:

Heinkel He-100 A-1

General Type:
Airplane = 1
Airship = 2
Orbiter = 3
1

Year of First Flight: 1939

Description

Carrier or Rough Field
Monoplane
Conventional Fuselage

The WW version of the He-100D, equipped with 2 15mm MG-151 heavy machineguns in the wing roots and 2 7.92mm MG-17s in the nose decking, a 10mm armored seat for the pilot (+130 pounds), and self-sealing fuel tanks (+96 pounds).






Characteristics:

Weight (maximum) 6,000 lbs
Weight (empty) 5,068 lbs

Length 29 ft
Wingspan 33 ft
Wing Area 177 sq ft
Sweep 1 degrees

Engines 1
DB-601N
Piston

1,179 hp
at 16,000 ft


Crew 1


Typical cost $0.030 million in 1939
Total number procured 2000


Performance:

Top Speed 355 kts = 408 mph
at 16,000 ft
Mach N/A

Operational Ceiling 39,000 ft

Range 600 nm = 691 miles
with 157 lbs payload
164 lbs released at halfway point

Climb 2,949 fpm

Cruise 250 kts = 288 mph
at 28,000 ft

Corner Speed 247 KIAS =
316 kts at 16,000 ft
Mach N/A
Turning Rate 22.4 deg/sec
Radius 2,738 ft



Internal Data:

Intake / Fan Diameter 9.5 ft

Bypass Ratio 89

Engine Weight 1320 lbs
Overall Efficiency 22.5 percent

Structural Factor 1.00

Number of Wings 1
Number of Fuselages 1

Limiting Airspeed 450 kts
Wing Ultimate g Load 10.00 g
Wing Taper 0.5
Wing Thickness at Root 1 ft

Tail / Canard Factor 0.4

Number of Nacelles 0
Length 9 ft
Diameter 3.25 ft
Fullness 0.45

Fuselage Diameter 3.75 ft
Fuselage Fullness 0.35

Pressurized Volume 0 percent
Cargo Decks 0

Cleanness 85 percent
Unstreamlined section 1.15 sq ft

User equipment 1,050 lbs

Quoted

there are IS one difference in this version that will lower drag: the wing thickness at the root is thinner. It makes the plane a bit heavier, but it does make it faster. Keep in mind that the D series aircraft historically had radiator, not evaporative, cooling and had a top speed of about 416 mph.

Thinning the wing will reduce drag but there is less space available for undercarriage or weapons. 1ft thickness (at the root as it will thin towards the tip) is pretty marginal for enclosing the landing gear. This is why you'll see on postwar jets the landing gear retracting into the fuselage. Looking at the historical He-100 this shouldn't be a great problem as the wheels come up right at the wing root. Unfortunately this makes the armament fit of 2x15mm MG151s in the wing roots impossible. They'd have to be moved outboard, where space becomes a consideration because of the thin wing.

The historical He-100D had a retractable radiator. Not good for cooling but would give a considerable increase to the top speed. A permanent ventral installation would give more drag and reduce speed more.

The undercarriage/armament interaction is an issue, but a solvable one. The WW He-100 has longer wings than the historical plane, put the additional length at the root rather than the tip and move the landing gear out enough to clear the machinegun barrels (which won't be that far). Or run the barrels just ouboard of the tires of the landing gear, as was done on the Fw-190. Either way will work, the latter's probably better though as it allows the use of the bottom of the fuselage to contain the wheels and the space aft of the wheels in the wing can be used for the ammunition box..

Currently, the WW He-100 A has a semi-retractable radiator: without an evaporative cooling system, a fully retractable radiator is pointless, but being able to reduce the drag of the radiator in certain types of flying seems of value.

I'm not keen on retractable radiators. They add weight and complexity for little real gain unless you want straight line speed. In combat you want max power for climbing and at relatively low speeds with lower airflow so radiator will be fully extended and still need to keep an eye on the gauges. Unless you want to do a lot of high speed straight runs for 5 minutes or so then there isn't much point.

I've also got to wonder whether its a good idea to support the Bf 109, He-100 and Fw 190 for the same role?

A retractable (to any degree) radiator is not useful for sustained climbs, agreed. However, for zoom climbs (converting speed to altitude), they are, as they allow more speed, hence more energy. High speed is also very useful for shoot-and-scoot tactics, where a firing pass is made at the target and then the attacker breaks away at high speed.


Having 3 single-seat, single-engine designs in service shouldn't be excessive, most historical air forces of the period had 2-4. Longer term, the Bf-109 series may well end with the Bf-109F, so the Luftwaffe might well be using mostly He-100s and Fw-190s by the early-mid 1940s, when they'll start being replaced by Ta-152s and other exotica.

Would there be any 190Ds and Ta152s without a second world war and the severe need to build fighters with bomber engines and the like?

The reason for the Fw-190D and the Ta-152H was not a need to build fighters with bomber engines (the Jumo-213 wasn’t really a bomber engine, it was just heavier than the DB-605), the reason for their creation was to create a fighter with better high altitude performance than the BMW-801 powered Fw-190As could achieve. In an ideal world, the Fw-190D and Ta-152 would have been powered by the DB-603 (the engine Kurt Tank wanted), but the RLM kept rejecting his requests for this engine and told him to use the Jumo-213 instead. Not that the Jumo-213 was a bad engine, it wasn't, the DB-603 was just better but the RLM didn’t want it used (I've never seen a real reason why, though, perhaps it was feared that it would cut into DB-605 production).

If there aren't any high-altitude bombing campaigns in the right time period, it's certainly possible that the Fw-190D and Ta-152H would not be developed, but the Ta-152C is very likely in any event. Here in WW, it's possible that the BMW-801J (the turbosupercharged -801) will be available with the greater availability of high-temperature alloys, if so that would definitely make the historical Fw-190D unlikely.