He-177 and derivatives

[Bill TGH]

Hi folks,

  To kick off here's one I'm toying with - a post war, unarmed He-277 Maritime Patrol aircraft:



What other ideas do you have?

Regards,

Greg

I just picked up the Revell kit at a yard sale for the tremendous sum of 7$ CDN. My first thought was Maritime Patrol (Neptunesqe )



radar a little farther forward and perhaps some observation windows behind the wing...

[Bill TGH]

a slight variation... Twin Greif
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234965223-heinkel-he-177z-a6r5/

or jet Greif
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234952210-a-whiffie-heinkel-he-177z-a2-anti-shipping-version/page-2

or twin Grief XL
http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/ATF_Third_Anniversary_GB_Gallery_about13587.html

or D-Day Greif
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:He_177A-5_during_RAF_tests_c1945.jpg


French Grief


Canadian HE-177 (according to GOOGLE)


American Grief (via FFAF)


Captured Greif's


Meng Kids Greif

[PR19_Kit]

Good grief, an EGGGREIF! 

[jcf]

I'd put the new Meng kits more in the Japanese 'Super-Deformed' model tradition than the eggplane category.

[wuzak]

There was a jet Greif - the Junkers Ju 287.

It had the fuselage of a He 177 with new wings and fixed undercarriage (the nose wheels of which was from downed B-24s!).

[Dizzyfugu]

But the 287 was not intended as a jet version of the 177. They just used the fuselage instead of constructing one from scratch for the prototype.

[Captain Canada]

Wow...glad this thread was revived/ found ! Some great stuff in there. I've got a Greif that's been giving me, well.....grief, and these are some great ideas !

[Knightflyer]

Captured Greif's

What kit / decal set is that from ? ?

[Tophe]

a slight variation... Twin Greif
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234965223-heinkel-he-177z-a6r5/
or twin Grief XL
http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/ATF_Third_Anniversary_GB_Gallery_about13587.html
Meng Kids Greif

Thanks for the twin-fuselage and egg ones!
(the twin-Greif was here at http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,39541.0.html )

[wuzak]

But the 287 was not intended as a jet version of the 177. They just used the fuselage instead of constructing one from scratch for the prototype.

True.

But the version linked by Bill wouldn't have been either.

or jet Greif
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234952210-a-whiffie-heinkel-he-177z-a2-anti-shipping-version/page-2

[RAFF-35]

If you do a biplane version with floats then you end up with a good maritime patrol aircraft that looks surprisingly similar to the spruce moose from the Simpsons

[Bill TGH]

What kit / decal set is that from ? ?
[/quote]

MPM , but it looks hard to acquire...

http://www.specialhobby.eu/en/our-production/1-48-heinkel-he-177a-5-greif-captured-bird.html?cur=2&lang=1&redirected=1

[Gondor]

No reason why you could not use the instruction sheet as a guide for using markings in 1/72 from various sources if that is your preferred scale.

Gondor

[KJ_Lesnick]

While this is mostly a model-building and graphic-arts forum: Actual data is quite useful, and it can also lay out the grounds for alternate-history scenarios, and model-building ideas.

That being said, I looked at Wikipedia's entry on the He-177 and I've found some interesting stuff

The DB-606 wasn't inherently flawed

It worked fine on the He-119 It was a detail-related issue that was due to the following

• Cowls were excessively tight: Uncertain why that was so, but it could have been due to the dive-bombing requirement (drag reduction in dives is why two engines were favored over four, and initial proposals called for evaporative cooling), for level cruise-speed, or both.
  
• Nacelle layout caused excessive heating in the central exhaust manifold which caused the typical accumulation of oil, grease, and soot to catch fire
  
• No firewall was present due to the desire to save weight (dive-bomber mission)
  
• The fuel pump connections often leaked
  
• Engine position made it difficult to fit all the fuel/oil-lines, and electrical equipment in a reasonably roomy environment
  
• The oil-pump was bad and sometimes resulted in a tendency for the oil to foam at altitude: This reduced the ability of the oil to lube everything up and resulted in engine disintegrations
  

Personally, I'm of the opinion that a four-engined heavy-bomber is generally better if the option exists simply because large aircraft are often underpowered compared to fighters, and due to long range operations, you can basically lose an engine more easily; if you lose 1 engine, you still have 3 good ones running; if you have two: You now only have 1 good engine working.

Doubts as to the Dive Bombing Capability

During the final inspection of the Projekt 1041 mock-up on 5 November 1937, Ernst Udet mentioned the OKL's new dive-bombing requirement to Ernst Heinkel, who replied that the aircraft would never be capable of it. The He 177 had to be strengthened to support the stresses imposed by the pull-out from a dive; later, the required angle for dive-bombing attacks was increased to 60°, which necessitated further structural strengthening and a big increase in weight.

I'm not sure what the initial dive-angle requirements were, but I'm surprised nobody listened to Heinkel pointing out that the new 60-degree dive requirement would be impossible: It's not like he was an aircraft designer or anything... (frankly, despite being Jewish and having a natural dislike for the Nazi's: I actually find the Nazi's stupidity in some areas to be quite a relief -- every act of stupidity of theirs effectively made the war either easier to win, or winnable at all)

Early Desire for 4-Engined Variants

Due to continuing problems with the DB 606's configuration, much development work was done in order to rectify engine complications. This included a complete redesign of the original He 177, primarily through newer wing designs and layouts to accommodate them, in conjunction with the A-3 subtype's lengthened rear fuselage, intended to create a four-engined version of the Greif‍ '​s airframe. The first concerns over the coupled-engine vs. four separate engine issue for the He 177 emerged in mid-November 1938, as Ernst Heinkel had requested that two of the requested eight He 177 prototypes to be fitted out with four individual engines in place of the coupled-engine arrangements, eventually specifying that the V3 and V4 airframes get four individual Junkers Jumo 211 engines each in a 17 November in-plant corporate meeting 
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.
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Göring was reported as stating in late August 1942, following his earlier complaints to Oberst Petersen on the 13th of the month: "I had told Udet from the start that I wanted this beast with four engines. This crate must have had four engines at some time! Nobody had told me anything about this hocus-pocus with welded-together engines."

The Design Had a Potential to be Workable

I also remember a documentary on the He-177 Greif on Youtube sometime ago and I remember something to the effect of the aircraft's baseline fuselage having no inherent fatal-flaws for the purposes of high altitude level-bombing, and had the Germans devoted a greater effort to fixing the problems, they'd have had a rival to the RAF's Lancasters, the USAAF's B-17's, B-24's, and to an extent, our B-29's.

[wuzak]

The Me 261 V1 also had little problem with the DB606 (I believe the V2 and V3 had the DB610, or maybe just the V3).

Makes you wonder why the DB606/610 wasn't selected for the Me 264.

The Me 264 was designed around the 1,750hp DB603A, but due to their late arrival the V1 used the 1,300hp Jumo 211.

For my point of view, the 1,750hp engines were probably not powerful enough either. The DB606 was rated at ~2,700hp, so would have been a useful increase in power.

The other options that were possibly not considered were the DB604 X24 (2,600hp at take-off rating) and the Jumo 222 (2,000hp for early versions, 2,500hp for later versions). The DB604 was cancelled in favour of continued development on the bread and butter V12 DBs, while the Jumo 222 had a multitude of issues that delayed its introduction - the Junkers Ju 288 replaced its Jumo 222s with DB 606s.

The interesting thing about the DB606 and 610 was that it was literally two separate engines which, unlike the Allison V-3420, could be perated independently, each half having its own supercharge and accessories.