The first jet fighter – “What if …”

***image1***In August 1939, just days before World War II began, the German Heinkel He 178 became the world’s first jet aircraft to fly and birthed one of most interesting questions of World War II – “what if the Germans had developed jet fighters earlier?”

The small, single engine He 178 was a private venture of the Heinkel company’s director Ernst Heinkel and a young engineer, Hans von Ohain, who had taken out a patent on using the exhaust from a gas turbine as for  propulsion.

The He 178 was designed around von Ohain’s jet engine, HeS 3, but the aircraft’s speed was only 325 mph and endurance was only 10 minutes.

When it was shown to Luftwaffe Chief Herman Goering and the leaders of the German Aviation Ministry, they showed no interest in jet engines, expecting the war to be over quickly and the current German piston engines fighters to be sufficient.

Undaunted, Heinkel began to develop a twin-engined jet fighter, the Heinkel He 280, which became the first turbojet-powered fighter in the world.

There was some innovation – tricycle landing gear and it was the first aircraft with an ejection seat – but aerodynamically the He 280 was conservative. It had straight semi-elliptical wings with a HeS 8 jet engine – a larger HeS 3 – under each wing, a relatively normal size fighter fuselage, and twin fins and rudders. It was small – about 9,400 pounds fully loaded – and that went well with the low thrust of the HeS 8 engines.

The first prototype was completed in the summer of 1940, but because the HeS 8 engines were not ready, the first prototype started glide tests with ballast hung in the place of its engines.

The engines were finally mounted in early 1941 and on April 5, 1941, the He 280 made a powered flight for the head of the Luftwaffe development department, but failed to make an impression.

The result of this was limited funding, especially of the unreliable engines, and thus many problems that might have been fixed were not. The He 280 lanquished until it flew in a head-to-head completion with the FW 190, the Luftwaffe’s best fighter. The test showed the He280 was much faster and the fact that the jet engine could burn kerosene, which was much less expensive and easy to produce than the high octane fuel used by piston-engined aircraft, led to a small order of 24 pre-production aircraft.

Engine problems continued to plague the project. One prototype was re-equipped with the different type of engine – the Argus pulsejet.
The He 280 was towed aloft to test the engines, but on the first test flight bad weather caused the aircraft to ice up before the jets could be tested and the test pilot, Helmut Schenk, became the first person to use an ejection seat. The seat worked perfectly, but the aircraft was lost.

Heinkel was now forced to accept that the He 280 would have to use a different engine, the BMW 003.

Unfortunately, this engine was also experiencing problems and delays, so the second He 280 prototype was re-engined with Germany’s best jet engine (a very relative term), the Jumo 004, an engine that was much larger and heavier than the engine the He 280 had been designed for.

While the test aircraft flew well on its first test flight in March 1943, it was obvious that the Jumo 004 was too large for the long term. The test program also showed the small He 280 would have very limited range and could only carry the relatively light armament of three 20 mm cannons.

Heinkel had another problem – with the delays with the He 280, competitor Willi Messerschmitt had developed a truly great aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me 262.
The Me 262 was a much larger jet fighter with longer range, carried very heavy armament – four 30 mm cannons plus two 550-pound bombs – and was both more compatible with the Jumo 004 and its swept wing was much more advanced aerodynamically.

In April 1943, Heinkel was ordered to abandon the He 280, something he remained bitter about until his death. While the slow, early development of the He 280 offers interesting “what if” questions, its performance was in fact not a major leap forward.

By the time it would have come into service, it would have had only a small speed advantage over later allied fighters, and its poor maneuverability and short range would not have provided the Luftwaffe the technological boost it needed.
The Me 262 did, but too late.

Questions or comments, contact Dr. Michel at marshall.michel@ramstein.af.mil.