Heinkel He 100 (oz5904)

About this Plan

Heinkel he 100. Semi scale RC model fighter for .40 to .60 power.

Quote: "First flown in early 1938, the Heinkel He 100 series was to become one of the Fuherer's biggest frauds of WWII. Heinkel designed it as the ultimate fighter after his unsuccessful attempt to sell the Luftwaffe on the earlier He 112 design. The new plane was to be easy to mass produce with as few parts as possible. (It contained only 969 single parts while the He 112 had 2885.) The He 100 was designed to obtain a speed of over 450 mph, no easy task for a combat aircraft in 1938 when it was test flown. Performance was so good Heinkel decided to try for the 100 km closed course speed record. This was not to be since the Luftwaffe, realizing the potential of the new plane, took it over for flight testing.

On June 6 1938, Ernst Udet flew the second He 100 to a new record speed of 399.4 mph. This beat the Italian record by approximately 50 mph set by a Breda 88. At this point the propaganda machine started grinding out new stories claiming the new record was set by the inferior He 112 fighter in limited production at that time.

With the 100 km closed course record won, Heinkel set up a special He 100 to capture the absolute speed record. This plane was lost during a test flight when the landing gear failed to extend. The pilot bailed out and the plane crashed. A fourth plane was readied and, in March 1939, a new record speed of 463.92 mph was obtained. This record was set with a souped-up streamlined He 100 with 6 feet of wing clipped off, reducing the wing area by about 20%. The engine could put out 1800 horsepower and, when this was strapped to a 25 foot wing, it had to go! Again the propaganda mills went to work claiming the new record was set by a standard fighting machine of the Luftwaffe and not a racing plane.

Actually the He 100 was never put into production. It was no fault of the airplane but rather the shortage of the required engine and, also, since it too closely duplicated the Me 109 that was currently in production.

All the pre-production planes were sold off, six to Russia and three to Japan. The Japanese were going to manufacture the He 100 under license to Heinkel but this never took place. The 12 production He 100 D-1 fighters were used as further propaganda. They were called the He 113 and claimed to be a new front line 'Wonder Fighter.' Frequent repainting and fraudulant embleins and numbers made the dozen planes look like many. They were photographed constantly for propaganda use. This must have been effective since pilots reported encountering them and actually shooting them down. In fact the He 100 never saw any combat at all. In fact, it's only role as a military machine was for propaganda purposes.

The clean rakish lines of the He 100 lend themselves to producing a good looking model. I mounted the engine at an angle to the distinctive shape of the nose would not be lost. We went the whole route with retracts and flaps. All six channels of the World Engines 'Blue Max' Mk II radio system were put to use. An S-5R servo was used to operate the Goldberg Retracts. I have found that, set up properly, this combination will give long and trouble free service.

An S-5R servo was also used on the flaps and for a bomb drop. Since the S-5R has 180° of travel this is more than enough for the flaps. Looking at the top of the servo with the output wheel in the up position, drill a new pushrod hole in the 1 o'clock position (12 o'clock faces forward). Now, down flap puts the hole at 7 o'clock position. Effecting flap travel is obtained between 7 and 11 o'clock positions. From 11 to I o'clock there is little flap movement. This segment of travel is used to release a bomb via a second push-pull rod.

Three He 100's have been built, with and without flaps and retracts, and all have flown well. It has good potential in any Stand-Off scale contest and has placed high in every contest entered..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Update 17/09/2014: Thanks to JPM for pointing out this plan was from RCM.

Update 23/03/2016: Article pages, text and pics added, thanks to RFJ.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, text and pics.

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