Your Chance to Sway the 2026 Whiffies

[Old Wombat]

Just chucking this in here, too:

The He 119 V10 - the last coupled engined floatplane

The Heinkel He 119 V10

 The He 119 V10 was a singular aircraft from many points of view. It was the only example of the He 119 to survive WWII, it was the only sea-plane variant built and it was also the only one captured by the  Allied Forces.

 The He 119 was an experimental reconnaissance bomber built as a private venture by Heinkel to test low drag ideas proposed by Siegried & Walter Gunter which mainly concerned elliptical wing planforms, but also encompassed low drag fuselages as well. The core of this latter theory embodied making the engine itself low drag, and to this end the He 119 used the 'doubled' MB 606 engine, which was actually two DB 601 inverted V12 engines coupled together side by side. In the He 119 this remarkable power unit was located in the centre of the fuselage, almost on the CG, and drove a single propeller in the nose via a long shaft which passed down the centre of the cockpit!

 Having built the V1 prototype He 119 and demonstrated its remarkable performance with a top speed of well over 350 kts, which was faster than many fighters in 1937, the RLM became seriously interested in the project and gave it their tacit support but without actually issuing a purchase order. Heinkel carried on with the project, building a second and third prototype, the third one being fitted with two large floats to test the concept's capability as a seaplane. This V3 prototype had a slightly different wing planform, having a straighter leading and trailing edge, and this wing shape was carried over to the five aircraft built later on.

 The V3 was tested at the RLM's marine establishment at Erprobungsstelle Travemünde and was found to be as impressive as its land plane equivalents. However the RLM found no interest in such an obscure type and no further development took place on the seaplane version. The airframe was returned to Heinkel's factory at Marienehe where it languished for some years. The remainder of the He 119 airframes, although registered as civilian aircraft, were used as test airframes by both Heinkel and the RLM at the Rechlin test establishment, two of them being later sold to Japan and being shipped out there. Despite all the work being carried out on the 119 project, no production order was ever placed, mainly because all DB 601 engines were needed for other aircraft types now that war had been declared by Britain. The five test airframes were eventually scrapped on site at Rechlin, but the V3 seaplane was still kept hangared at Heinkel's factory, and would later come to the attention of the RLM, having previously rejected it as being useless for their purposes.

 During mid 1943 the need for a high speed, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft became apparent, the Ju 86Ps then in use were proving only too slow and vulnerable to high flying Spitfires, and the existence of the He 119 V3 was noted. Questioning Heinkel about the use of this aircraft the RLM asked if it could be modified to act as a test bed for such a high altitude task, and the V3 was moved to the Experimental Department to this end. The changes to the airframe mainly concerned considerably longer span wings, of a simple, straight tapered design, and the pressurisation of the cockpit, which was considerably more difficult due to the propshaft needing to be sealed at both ends. In addition the third crew members compartment aft of the engine and wing was also pressurised as he would be looking after the formidable camera payload which was to be installed just forward of his position. The conversion of the V3 to a landplane was considered but the tooling for the landing gear had been scrapped some years before, and no original parts were available anyway. The RLM decided that the use of the V3 in seaplane mode wouldn't limit the performance all that much and they would extrapolate any figures for a newly designed type from those obtained flying the V3. At the same time the RLM purchased the aircraft from  Heinkel as a full Luftwaffe type and re-titled it as the V10. It has never been explained what happened to the missing V9.............
 Thus modified, and resplendent in a newly applied RLM 82, 83 and 84 camouflage scheme, the V10 was flown back to Travemünde just along the Baltic coast, the only Luftwaffe flying boat research and development base. There it commenced a series of test flights to determine how good the new wing design performed and how well the DB 606 ran at the much higher altitudes now required. By now it was Spring 1944, and tensions all over Europe were at an all time high, the Wehrmacht being only too aware that the Allies would be planning an invasion of western Europe somewhere, and reconnaissance information on any forces for this task was urgently required. The trials of the V10 proved to be remarkably promising, the fuel and supercharger settings of the DB 606 being adjusted to suit the higher altitudes obtained with the new, larger wing, and the V10 could cruise at some 340 kts at 45000 ft, even in float plane form. While the new, planned design would not be an He 119 itself, some elements of the type were being considered, principally the new wing, and the DB 606, but with two of the latter engines mounted on the wings rather than using the somewhat bizarre 'engine in the middle' configuration  of the V10. This configuration mirrored that of the He 177 then in service as a heavy bomber, but using the larger DB 610 twinned engines.

 During the trial period it was suggested that the V10 be flown on a real PR mission over the British Isles as an operational test flight, and while the Luftwaffe High Command were less than enthusiastic, both Heinkel staff and the Travemünde hierarchy were happy with the idea, as was the 119's normal test crew. Accordingly in early May that year the sole remaining He 119 headed west across Denmark and the North Sea, crossing the British coastline between Scarborough and Filey and heading west across the Yorkshire Moors. During that period of the war the RAF's 13 Group had responsibility for the fighter defence of the Northern UK but had sent many of its squadrons south prior to the build up for the D-Day invasion and no dedicated fighter cover was based near the bomber squadron bases that covered much of Britain's largest county. The solo He 119 tracked west across the county until RAF Topcliffe and RAF Dishforth came into view, both of which were RCAF Bomber Squadron bases, and these were duly photographed. The Heinkel's crew, considering they had proved their point, reversed course and returned to Travemünde. Flying at such a high altitude they didn't expect any opposition and didn't get any either, so the flight was more an endurance test rather than any 'combat preparedness' test, but did return with some useful information on the number of bombers at the two Canadian bases.

 While further flight testing took place much of the Luftwaffe was concerned more with what was happening in Southern England, and of course in early June they found out just what that was! Work on the He 119 came to a halt as every experienced PR crew was required for checking out Normandy, and the Travemünde crews were all transferred to Northern France, one of them flying the Ar 234A jet PR aircraft having had suitable training.

 As the war carried on the whole He 119 project ground to a halt, no work at all taking place in the whole remainder of 1944, and the very cold winter of 1944/45 helped very little too. By early 1945 the staff at Travemünde had moved the airframe onto land, and removed the floats for storage purposes as otherwise the fin was too tall for the only available hangar, and there it sat until the war ended. All that changed when the Allied Aviation Intelligence missions arrived in the Summer of 1945.

 While most of the Intelligence missions aimed at the manufacturer's plants and the Rechlin test centre, one unit headed to Travemünde as the main seaplane base for the RLM's testing, and amongst other aircraft they found the 119 hidden in its hanger. As it was mounted on trestles, with the floats stored away elsewhere, they thought it was a landplane He 119, and this type was of great interest to the engineers at RAE Farnborough due to its use of the DB 606 coupled engine. While struggling to find out how to lower the non-existent landing gear, it became only too apparent that there wasn't any, and the gear doors were in fact just cover plates. Realising that  there was no way they could flight test the 119, and with Farnborough screaming out to have the aircraft sent back there, the AAI group arranged to have it dismantled and shipped back to the UKL by ship, easily done as of course Travemünde was a port as well as an aviation base.

 Some time later when the 119 arrived at Farnborough, the RAE engineers quickly determined that it was the original V3 prototype from the build plates on the airframe and asked the AAI unit to look for the floats, and they returned to Travemünde post haste. The German staff there eventually remembered where they had been stored and they too were shipped back to the UK, but it was senseless sending them to Farnborough as it was a landplane base. Accordingly both the main airframe and the floats were shipped to the Felixstowe Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment. The original AAI group had painted crude RAF roundels over the Luftwaffe crosses and swastikas as the rules determined then, and while at Farnborough the underside of the 119 had been painted yellow, as was the standard for aircraft in the No. 1426 Enemy Aircraft Flight, but of course it had never been flown in that state. By the time the 119 arrived at Felixstowe in late 1945 the whole paint scheme had faded considerably, and the maintenance team there stripped much of the yellow paint from the underside to find out how to re-connect the floats. After that had been accomplished much of the centre underside was repainted, but in a much brighter yellow that they had in stock, but the floats had to be disconnected and reconnected a number of times to get the trim angles correct and the re-patching was done with RAF Dark Green, giving the V10 a distinctly patchwork appearance from the underside!

 Thus adorned the V10 undertook a number of test flights at the MAEE, mainly to measure its waterborne performance against RAF floatplanes, and most of these were carried out by Capt. Eric 'Winkle' Brown. Capt. Brown's comments on the V10 were quite complementary, mentioning the exceptional climb rate and its stability at altitude, but were less than pleasing about the V10's manoeuverability, it not being helped by the long span wings and the inertia of the floats. The Engine Performance Dept. at Farnborough really wanted to see what made the DB 606 tick, and Capt. Brown flew the aircraft to RAF Calshot at the mouth of Southampton Water which was much closer to Farnborough, only half the distance from Felixstowe. For much of the following year the V10 was tested to its limits, and mostly confirmed the RAE's feelings that twinned engines were not worth the trouble they provided, and that the RAF's desire to use separate engines in widely separated nacelles was the way to go. The V10 was once again put into store, this time ashore at Calshot in the large hangars there, and it remained on site till the mid '50s, by which time it was in a fairly dilapidated state, and as it was a decidedly non-standard type none of the museums or collections were interested in displaying it. The V10 was on a list for scrapping, but at the last minute salvation appeared in the shape of an approach from the German military history collection at Uetersehen, where a collection of former soldier's, sailor's and airman's memorabilia was being gathered. A whole aeroplane was seen to be a major find there of course, although little funding was available for something that large.

 But at this time the RAF had just started taking delivery of its heavy lift Blackburn Beverly freighter and moving an entire aeroplane to Germany was seen as an interesting exercise. Accordingly 47 Squadron dispatched three of their Beverlies to RNAS Lee-on-Solent, HMS Daedalus in Royal Navy speak, which was only five miles away from Calshot across Southampton Water. The V10 was carefully re-floated and some small leaks in the floats plugged, and it was towed across to Lee-on-Solent by one of the RAF's marine craft boats based at Calshot, but VERY slowly and in calm conditions too. The Calshot crew then took the V10 apart once more, and loaded the fuselage into one Beverly, the wings into the second and the floats into the third, and the whole convoy returned the V10 to its home country.

 Since then the Uetersehen museum was taken over by the Bundeswhere and is currently located at the ex-Luftwaffe and ex-RAF airfield at Gatow in western Berlin, where a large collection of aircraft and other memorabilia are on display. The V10 remains the only example of a 'twinned engine' aircraft anywhere in the world currently, and enjoys an enthusiastic crew of volunteers to keep it in running condition. The DB 606 is run once every month and although the V10 will never fly again its unique sound track can still be heard all across Berlin.

================================

Build thread for the He 119 V10 is here

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53218.msg1068957#msg1068957

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53675.msg1069253#new


Best Backstory

[PR19_Kit]

Coooer, thanks so much. 

[TomZ]

Ericr's Super-Tiger & Viscount



https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=37003.msg1069557#msg1069557

TomZ

[ericr]

oh thank you

[NARSES2]

Comrade Harps Mexican BMX Bandits

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53728.msg1071339#new

[comrade harps]

Comrade Harps Mexican BMX Bandits

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53728.msg1071339#new

Thank you. I'm proud of this pair. I've been waiting for a 1 72 scale injection moulded AMX for decades, so when Italeri released both single and two seaters, l went mad, bought both and made them a loved up couple. I wanted modern and varied loadouts and a camo that was subtle and common to both, yet individually applied. I've had the BMX backstory in my noggin for years. I took my time with these, didn't rush them and l hope it shows.

[kitbasher]

Comrade Harps Mexican BMX Bandits

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53728.msg1071339#new

Thank you. I'm proud of this pair. I've been waiting for a 1 72 scale injection moulded AMX for decades, so when Italeri released both single and two seaters, l went mad, bought both and made them a loved up couple. I wanted modern and varied loadouts and a camo that was subtle and common to both, yet individually applied. I've had the BMX backstory in my noggin for years. I took my time with these, didn't rush them and l hope it shows.

 

[NARSES2]

I've had the BMX backstory in my noggin for years. I took my time with these, didn't rush them and l hope it shows.

It does 

[NARSES2]

Scautomoton's English Electric "Super" Lightning P.8 Concept

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53734.new#new

[The Rat]

Zenrat's lovely Fairey Firefly MkIII in Red Army colours

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53742.0

[kitbasher]

Scautomoton's English Electric "Super" Lightning P.8 Concept

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53734.new#new

Seconded.

[zenrat]

Thanks Ratty.
 

[NARSES2]

Dizzy's Swedish AF Fokker D.VIII

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=53735.0

[Dizzyfugu]

Oh, that's very kind, esp. for such a tiny build!