AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 143 / 342

Plate 143 of 342 · Second World War · Long-range heavy bomber

Heinkel He 177 A-5 Greif

He 177 A-5 TS439, painted as Heinkel He 177 A-5/R6 Greif Werknummer 550062, formerly ‘F8+AP’ of 6./KG 40, as flown by the RAF as TS439 at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, in 1944–45: Germany’s only operational heavy bomber, with a coupled DB 610 power plant (two DB 605s geared to one four-blade propeller) in each of its two nacelles, a long glazed ‘cabin’ nose over a ventral Bola gondola, a dorsal barbette and turret, a raised tail-gunner’s position and a wing spanning 31.44 m, shown tail down on its twin-wheeled main legs: pale RLM 76 fuselage sides, nacelles and fin with a soft grey-green mottle, RLM 70 and 71 splinter upper wing, tailplane and spine, mid-grey undersides, five white and black bands round the rear fuselage and across the outer wings, RAF roundels on the fuselage and wings, a fin flash and the serial TS439 (no He 177 survives; shape from an He 177 A-1 three-view adjusted to the published A-5 changes and checked against wartime photographs of this aircraft; the photographs are black and white, so all colours are judged, and the guns are shown as short stubs as none are visible on TS439).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Heinkel He 177 A-5/R6 Greif Werknummer 550062, formerly ‘F8+AP’ of 6./KG 40, as flown by the RAF as TS439 at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, in 1944–45: Germany’s only operational heavy bomber, with a coupled DB 610 power plant (two DB 605s geared to one four-blade propeller) in each of its two nacelles, a long glazed ‘cabin’ nose over a ventral Bola gondola, a dorsal barbette and turret, a raised tail-gunner’s position and a wing spanning 31.44 m, shown tail down on its twin-wheeled main legs: pale RLM 76 fuselage sides, nacelles and fin with a soft grey-green mottle, RLM 70 and 71 splinter upper wing, tailplane and spine, mid-grey undersides, five white and black bands round the rear fuselage and across the outer wings, RAF roundels on the fuselage and wings, a fin flash and the serial TS439 (no He 177 survives; shape from an He 177 A-1 three-view adjusted to the published A-5 changes and checked against wartime photographs of this aircraft; the photographs are black and white, so all colours are judged, and the guns are shown as short stubs as none are visible on TS439). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.7 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (He 177A-5); engine, crew and dimensions are for the He 177 A-5 TS439 modelled here.

History

The He 177

In 1936 and 1937 the German Air Ministry asked for a long-range heavy bomber, the ‘Bomber A’, that could reach far out over the Atlantic and deep into Russia, and Heinkel’s design team under Siegfried Günter won the contract. To keep drag down they gave it only two nacelles, each holding a pair of Daimler-Benz engines mounted side by side and geared together to drive one large propeller, so that a bomber with four engines’ power looked like a twin. The Ministry also insisted that the new heavy bomber should be able to dive-bomb, which added a great deal of structural weight. The first prototype flew on 19 November 1939.

The coupled engines were the He 177’s undoing. Packed tightly into their nacelles, they leaked fuel and oil onto hot exhausts, and so many caught fire in flight that crews called the type the Luftwaffe’s lighter. Several prototypes and early production aircraft were lost, and the type reached the bomber units only slowly from 1942. The first He 177s to see action flew supplies into Stalingrad in January 1943, a job they were ill suited to. The dive-bombing requirement was dropped in 1942, and the A-5, the main production version from 1943, had a strengthened wing, a longer fuselage, shorter undercarriage legs and the improved DB 610 power plants.

With KG 40 the A-5 carried Hs 293 glide bombs against Allied shipping in the Atlantic and off Anzio, and in early 1944 He 177s of KG 40 and KG 100 joined Operation Steinbock, the ‘Baby Blitz’ on London, approaching at height and diving shallowly across the target to gain speed. In the summer of 1944 KG 1 sent them against Soviet railways in mass raids, but by the autumn the fuel shortage had grounded almost all of them. About 1,170 were built, Germany’s only operational heavy bomber of the war. No He 177 survives.

This airframe

He 177 A-5 TS439

TS439The airframe modelled

TS439 was an He 177 A-5 of 6./KG 40, Werknummer 550062, coded ‘F8+AP’. It was left behind at Toulouse-Blagnac when the Germans withdrew, taken by French Resistance fighters in early September 1944 and flown to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough on 10 September by Wing Commander Roland Falk. The RAE flew it for test until February 1945 under the RAF serial TS439. No He 177 survives and none is in a UK museum, so the model shows the He 177 that the photographs record best, as they show it at Farnborough, standing tail down on its wheels: the Luftwaffe finish it was captured in, with pale RLM 76 fuselage sides, nacelles and fin under a soft grey-green mottle, RLM 70 and 71 splinter upper wing, tailplane and spine and mid-grey undersides, five white and black recognition bands painted for the ferry flight round the rear fuselage and across the outer wings, RAF roundels on the fuselage and wings, a fin flash, a light strip on the rudder where French stripes were painted out, and the serial TS439 on the rear white band. Its shape comes from an He 177 A-1 three-view, adjusted to the published A-5 changes and checked against photographs of this aircraft. The photographs are black and white, so all the colours are judged, the serial is assumed to appear on the starboard side as well as the port, and the guns are shown as short stubs because none is visible in the photographs.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No He 177 survives.

All 342 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.