World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe He 112 fighters were designed by Walter and Siegfried Günter at Heinkel as the response to Luftwaffe's call for designs for a fighter contract. Luftwaffe demanded a monoplane fighter that could attain a high speed, which the He 112 design fulfilled, but the contract eventually went to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 design due to He 112's expensive price tag and perhaps partially due to the crashes during performance review. There were some controversial arguments on why the Bf 109 design beat out the He 112, including Messerschmitt's more capable political machine as well as bad management by the project manager Heinrich Hertel. Whatever the true reason was, executives at Heinkel continued to develop the design, believing that even if the Luftwaffe did not select the model, foreign air forces would. Prototype V9 was flown by pilots from all over the world in late 1937 for that precise reason, and orders soon came in. Four aircraft were shipped to the Japanese Navy in Dec 1937 to counter the Russian fighters flown by Chinese pilots, and 12 went to Spain in between Nov 1937 and Apr 1938 after observing the potentials of He 112s. In Jun 1938, Hungary evaluated the aircraft and later decided to purchase three. Finally, in Apr 1939, Romania placed an order for 24, then increased the order by another six aircraft on 18 Aug; some of these aircraft were flown by Romanian pilots against their Russian counterparts during Operation Barbarossa. There were interests from other nations, but the high price tag prevented governments such as Finland and the Netherlands to make the purchase. When the design was becoming outperformed by other designs, including one of Heinkel's own, the production line closed down. During the design's production life, a total of 98 units were produced.

He 112 Timeline

SPECIFICATIONS

He 112A-0 V4

Machinery	One Junkers Jumo 210Da liquid-cooled inverted V-12 engine rated at 680hp
Armament	3x7.92mm MG17
Crew	1
Span	11.50 m
Length	9.00 m
Height	3.70 m
Wing Area	23.20 m²
Weight, Empty	1,680 kg
Speed, Maximum	488 km/h
Service Ceiling	8,000 m
Range, Normal	1,100 km

He 112B-2

Machinery	One Junkers Jumo 210Ga liquid-cooled inverted V-12 engine rated at 700hp
Armament	2x7.92mm MG17, 2x20mm MG FF cannons
Span	9.09 m
Length	9.22 m
Height	3.82 m
Wing Area	17.00 m²
Weight, Empty	1,617 kg
Weight, Maximum	2,248 kg
Speed, Maximum	510 km/h
Service Ceiling	9,500 m
Range, Normal	1,150 km

Photographs