Heinkel P. 1079

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Heinkel P. 1079

Collage of a P.1079 model in flight over the English Channel
Type: Night fighter
Design country:

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Manufacturer:

Heinkel

First flight:

not happened

Number of pieces:

0

The Heinkel P.1079 was a night fighter design by Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke from the final phase of World War II . Due to the end of the war, no copy was built.

Design history

Project 1079 is one of the last drafts that Heinkel produced before the end of the war. The draft was a reaction to the demand of the Reich Aviation Ministry to create a modern night fighter. Within the framework of the directive 12376/45, the RLM issued the following technical requirements on January 27, 1945:

  • Speed ​​of 900 km / h at an altitude of 9000 m
  • Total flight time of four hours
  • only offensive armament with four machine weapons
  • Equipped with the FuG 244 "Bremen"
  • two crew members.

In addition to Heinkel, the companies Arado , Blohm & Voss and Messerschmitt took part in this tender . Heinkel already had experience in this area, as with the Heinkel He 219 it had built the first German aircraft specifically designed as a night fighter. Project 1079 was started in April shortly before the arrival of Allied troops in the Heinkel factory at Vienna-Schwechat airport by Dipl.-Ing. Siegfried Günter and his colleagues Walter Hohbach and Gerhard Eichner. The project documents were then handed over to the Air Technical Intelligence of the USAAF , which secured and evaluated technical equipment and drafts from the Germans as part of Operation LUSTY . After the end of the war, Günter was busy in Landsberg am Lech with the summary of his activities, for which he also worked on the 1079 project. The measurements and calculations for the design date back to August 11, 1945, so the project was only conceived after the end of the war.

construction

The P.1079 was designed as a cantilever mid-decker , with particular emphasis on favorable aerodynamics. The fuselage should accommodate a two-person, back-to-back crew. In addition, the radio measuring device FuG 244 "Bremen" , a further development of the FuG 240 "Berlin" , should be accommodated in the bow . This active radar device, specially developed for night hunting, with a range of 5 km was being tested at the end of the war. The propulsion was to be provided by two Heinkel HeS 011 jet engines , which were to be fed from fuel tanks in the fuselage and the inner wings . The planned integration of the engines into the wing roots would have required a special spar construction . The wings, like the V-tail , had a 45 ° sweep . The landing gear with a track width of 2.60 m was designed as a nose wheel landing gear. The nose wheel should be rotated by 90 ° and lie flat in the nose pulpit, while the main landing gear should be rotated 180 ° and pulled forward into the fuselage. As armament, four Rheinmetall-Borsig MK 108 were provided on the underside of the fuselage bow and two Mauser MG 151/20 in the wing roots.

classification

Compared to other jet aircraft and designs of World War II, the aerodynamics of the P.1079 appears remarkable. The engines are not housed in free-hanging engine nacelles, but rather integrated into the wing roots with low resistance, unlike the Messerschmitt Me 262 or Arado Ar 234 . The strong sweep of the wings and the tail unit was also progressive for the time. The V-shaped tail unit has hardly been researched and is still rarely used in the military sector. B. on the F-117 . With a planned top speed of over 980 km / h and a flight time of 2.7 hours, the P.1079 would have significantly outperformed the Me 262 as the most advanced fighter in the Air Force. The heavy armament of four 30-mm and two 20 mm machine guns had an effective fighting and the heavy allied combat aircraft such as the Boeing B-17 or the Avro Lancaster allows that the German standard hunters Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 caused great difficulties in the final stages of the war.

The bottom line is that the P.1079 can be seen as the end of the Heinkel designs for night fighters in World War II. With the favorable aerodynamics, the most powerful engines at the time, the modern radar device and the heavy armament, all essential knowledge and developments of the last years of the war were taken into account, which made the project a very progressive design. The draft could not influence the course of the war.

Technical specifications

Parameter Data
Intended use Night fighter
length 14.05 m
span 13.00 m
Wing area 35 m²
Wing extension 4.8
Wing loading 333 kg / m²
Top speed > 980 km / h
Flight duration 2.7 h
Engines 2 × HeS 011 with 1300 kg thrust each
Armament 4 × MK 108, 2 × MG 151/20
electronic equipment FuG 244 "Bremen"

See also

literature

  • Dieter Herwig, Heinz Rode: Secret Projects of the Air Force Volume II: Strategic Bombers 1935–1945 . 1st edition, Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-613-01788-1 .
  • Dieter Herwig, Heinz Rode: Secret projects of the Luftwaffe Volume III: Attack aircraft and combat destroyers 1935–1945 . 1st edition, Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-613-02242-7 .

Web links

Commons : Heinkel P.1079  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files