Heinkel He-111 - the German bomber

One of the main bombers of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. The history of the construction of this aircraft is very similar to the history of the emergence of other German aircraft of the time - disguised, ordered as a civilian aircraft, that could be used as a bomber, and the characteristics of a transport aircraft played almost no role here. It was supposed to hold 10 passengers, but the designers were told not to pay too much attention to that. Thus was born the project of the Gunter’s brothers, later called the Heinkel He-111. Initially, 5 prototypes were ordered: 3 bomber and 2 passenger versions. The passenger planes were delivered to “Lufthansa”. The first prototype was publicly demonstrated in January 1936. Soon after, a bomber version was produced, but already 10 units. Serial production began in 1938 and the bomber, which was constantly improved, was produced until the end of 1944. The first He-111s received their baptism of fire in Spain as part of the Legion “Kondor”. There they proved, that the enemy had no bombers, equal to them, and their own losses were very small. In the Polish company, in September 1939, bombers of this type were the main "workhorses" of the Luftwaffe - 470 of them participated in this war. But here the Luftwaffe leadership was very surprised by the high losses of these planes - they reached up to 20% of the initial number. The He-111 did not fare much better in the French campaign, and the Battle of Britain was the beginning of the end for these aircraft. But still they were used on all fronts. A total of 5600 units were produced during the war, after the war they were manufactured under license in Spain until 1956.

A complex, well-designed and richly detailed model for intermediate and advanced modelers only.