A most curious He 100 photo
 

Just stumbled across this one during my daily Ebay.de trawling... is that a wing-mounted radiator I see there on the port wing?



http://militariafuchs.de/oderspree-10.jpg


The photo is one of a series of shots taken during an Italian or Romanian inspection of a testing station (Travemünde, maybe?).


Link to auction:

http://cgi.ebay.de/Foto-Beute-Jagd-Flugzeug-beim-Versuch-am-Kran-im-2-WK_W0QQitemZ290326805738QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMilitar ia?hash=item4398d37cea&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkpa rms=65%3A10|66%3A2|39%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

Looks more like an Italian aircraft rather than a He 100.

Regards,
Mike

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

Not an He 100 - a cross between a Mig 3 and Fiat G-56 with a few tricks of its own. Note the inverted-gull wingform, but how many exhausts? What an odd windscreen - how long is that central canopy? What is that undercarriage about? Or that leading edge radiator only visible on one wing?

Is this another phoney?

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

The He 100 contained many design oddities and this opening was one of them. It is not a radiator opening but the air intake leading to the supercharger. Its just a minor refinement to reduce drag just a little bit! There should be a vertical baffle within the intake as well.

DGS

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

I happen to disagree with the thoughts of members Mike, Graham and Doug. To me, you don't have to be an "expert" on the Heinkel 100 to see distinct similarities between this aircraft and the ones so well documented in Erwin Hood's work on the type (Midland Counties Publications, 2007). As author Hood so well explained, much of what we previously "knew" about the He 100 is good only for the circular file, so it doesn't suprise me when yet another tiny segment of this story is brought to light. By the way Doug, the supercharger intake is the rectangular opening at the wing root; not the "new" feature within the the port wing.

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

You are quite right: I have undergone a conversion of Pauline rapidity, if not significance. The comparatively unsophisticated appearance of the undercarriage leg and windscreen are consistent, but I think it took an internal reassessment of the size.

It does occur to me to wonder if the wingroot intake inspired the similar intake on the Russian fighters?

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

To me it looks much like a He 100. Especially because the same seller offers a 2nd pic of a similar fighter - and that´s for sure a He 100:




http://militariafuchs.de/oderspree-14.jpg

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

Another photo of this series is an obviously elder Do 17 with a brand-new unpainted Do 17Z cockpit unit - maybe a prototype.

The 1st He 100 - surely this is no Italian plane because windshield and triangular rear window are quite characteristic for the Heinkel fighter - seems to have a chin radiator of semicircular shape below the engine. The belly radiator otherwise characteristic for the He 100 is not visible. The 2nd He 100 seems to have an even deeper chin radiator under the tarpaulin.
Regarding the sophisticated cooling system of the original He 100 this seem to be attempts to evaluate some more conventional radiator systems.

Regarding the Do 17Z conversion the time of the photographs seem to be not later than ´40, maybe even ´38-39. One might figure this could be a possible testbed for a proposed Jumo 211 installation into the He 100 which needed a different cooling.

Regards

Roland

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

The landing gear and triangular aft cockpit window were what tipped me off to it being an He 100. I don't have the new book on the type, so I don't know if this modification was covered in it or not... at first I thought it might have been another RZ65 test bed, but you can just make out the outline of an opened flap at the rear of this intake assembly, which definitely indicates this is a radiator. There are several photos taken in this series as noted by another poster- can anyone identify the insignia worn by the foreign officers? Could this be a Romanian delegation visiting a test site?

I saved a number of other photos from what might have been the same visit a few weeks ago, including a Bf 109G-2 with remarkable Stab markings from JFS 4... I'll try to get those posted so we can perhaps get a better idea of when and where these interesting photos were taken.

Thanks for all the input so far-

Lynn

Re: A most curious He 100 photo
 

Now I see what was being referred to. What I had referring to was the wing root intake. That wide slot-like intake under the port wing is a new feature to me. I have to agree with the view that it is a radiator. This plane had cooling problems and apart from the fuselage mounted radiator there are limited places to add more radiators. After the failure of the surface mounted radiators they must have tried out this "outboard" arrangement. Curiously the other wing doesn't seem to have it. This suggests to me that this was a brief one-off trial.