Heinkel He 70 Blitz

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Heinkel He 70 - version overview


Heinkel He 70 a - first prototype


Heinkel He 70 b - second prototype later armed


Heinkel He 70 c - third prototype later armed


Heinkel He 70 d - civilian machines for Lufthansa


Heinkel He 70 E - light bomber


Heinkel He 70 F - F-1 version; F-2 and F-3 multirole aircraft


Heinkel He 70 G - civilian machines for Lufthansa


Heinkel He 170 A-1 - export and license for Hungary


Heinkel He 270 V-1 - prototype


A total of 304 aircraft were produced, including prototypes
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History:


In the early 1930s, Lufthansa commissioned German factories to design a fast transport aircraft, the new aircraft was to surpass in performance the American Lockheed Orion aircraft introduced by Swissair. Already on its first flight on the Vienna - Zurich route, the Orion demonstrated its performance and outperformed all competitors from other companies at a speed 40 km/h higher.


Lufthansa commissioned Junkers and Heinkel to develop the new transport aircraft. There was one hard condition in the contract and that was that the entire development, including the construction of the first prototype, must not take more than half a year. Junkers responded with its type Ju-60 and although it tried for the highest possible performance, the landing gear was no longer fixed but partially retractable, the aircraft was 50 km/h slower than the Orion. Junkers designers stayed true to tradition and still used corrugated duralumin sheet metal, which had great strength but also great aerodynamic drag. Although the fuselage was already made of flat sheet, the wing and tail surfaces were still covered with corrugated sheet. The poor performance of the Junkers was partly due to the 525 horsepower BMW Hornet engine.


The Günter brothers in Rostock, where Heinkel was headquartered, approached the job quite differently. Work on the He-65 transport aircraft project began on February 13, 1932, and the aircraft still had a rigid, but carefully fairing landing gear. The whole project was quite quickly fundamentally redesigned and changed to the He-70. The new work began in May and just one month later the calculations and drawings of the new aircraft were completed. The whole change of the project was done at Heinkel's direction, because Lufhansa refused any cost increase. What was the reason for the feverish work on the new project? Simple - the Swiss put their Orions on Swissair's regular routes.


Heinkel's new project was revolutionary - graceful shapes, smooth surfaces without protrusions, a forked twelve-cylinder 610 hp BMW VI ZU engine and a fully retractable landing gear all gave a hint of the high performance that no other transport aircraft could boast at the time. The flight was made to complete satisfaction and the aircraft's good flight characteristics were verified.


The second prototype, designated as He-70a in February 1933, was slightly improved and soon became the holder of several speed records, in which it broke even the then modern British fighter Hawker Fury Mk.I. Lufthansa received further aircraft He-70b and He-70c, the performance of these aircraft did not escape the military of course, and so both of these aircraft were modified at the factory to the requirements of the Technisches Amt Luftfahrt kommissariat, and a gunnery range with a machine gun appears in the rear MG 15. Lufthansa began using the first three pre-series aircraft of the He-70d version from mid-year, later designated as He-70D-0, these aircraft were powered by BMW VI 7.3 Z engines. These were machines designated D-UBIN Falke, D-UDAS Habicht and D-UDOR Schwalbe.


Other versions were already for the Luftwaffe, the unarmed liaison He-70D-1, the light bomber He-70E and the multirole He-70F, these machines were delivered from the autumn of 1934 and differed from the civilian ones not only in armament but also in the possibility of quickly fitting an additional 280 litre fuel tank, which could increase the existing 420 litre fuel supply carried in two tanks located in the centreplane. The bomber version was not as widespread as the multirole aircraft, these were produced in F-1, F-2 and F-3 variants. The Luftwaffe replaced these aircraft with the more modern Dornier Do-17F-1 and twelve scrapped He-70F-2 were sold to Spain, where they formed the armament of Grupo 7-G-14 and eleven aircraft served there until the 1950s. The remaining aircraft were retired by the Luftwaffe after 1939 and assigned to flight schools and auxiliary units.

The Lufhansa used the following version Ju-70G from 1935 and received a total of nine of these aircraft. One aircraft was also ordered from Heinkel by Great Britain, but a Rolls-Royce Kestrel V engine was installed in the aircraft, such an engine brought with it a solid increase in performance, so Heinkel decided to follow this route and had a French Gnome-Rhône 14K Mistral Major engine installed in the He-70F-3, which was destined for Hungary. This was a very good business move as these engines were being produced under license in Hungary. Hungary bought at least eight aircraft now designated He-70K and about ten were produced under license as He-170. The Hungarians were still using these aircraft on the Eastern Front in 1941, but this was already the swan song of these aircraft and so there were only a small number of sorties, the reason for their withdrawal was also the inadequate defensive armament, consisting of the twin Gebauer machine gun.


Heinkel's last attempt to keep the He-70 in production was the He-270 version. This was actually the He-70F-2, which was fitted with the modern and notably powerful DB-601Aa engine. The Luftwaffe was no longer interested in this version, by this time more powerful twin-engined aircraft types were already entering its arsenal, and it needed the powerful DB-601 engines primarily for its Bf-109 fighters. Lufthansa was also not interested, as it was already a very uneconomical aircraft at that time. The cost per passenger was too high for the He-70.



Sources used:
http://usuarios.lycos.es/mrvalverde/fi26580.htm
www.google.co.uk
www.encyklopedia.biolog.pl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_70
www.eads.com
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/bww2/he270.html
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