Description
Heinkel HE 177, 277, 274
by Manfed Griehl & Joachim Dressel (Author)
Publisher: Air Life Pub Ltd | Nov. 1 1998 | Hardcover
The story of the evolution of Heinkel HE 177, 277, 274 by Manfed Griehl & Joachim Dressel is about Heinkel’s heavyweight bomber. As described in this volume, it is one of genius, disaster and despair.
The He 177 was conceived as a long-range heavy dive bomber, a big-brother to the Stuka
The He 177 was conceived as a long-range heavy dive bomber, a big-brother to the Stuka and it was hoped to become one of the pillars of the Luftwaffe’s armament. It incorporated many novel ideas, such as two engines powering one propeller. However, it was plagued with teething problems and unreliability that caused the deaths of many test pilots and led to a small production run.
ISBN-10 : 1853103640
ISBN-13 : 978-1853103643
Item weight : .947 kg
Dimensions : 20.32 x 2.54 x 26.04 cm
Heinkel HE 177, 277, 274
247 Pages
Questions?
admin W3B –
Dave from New England (Amazon Reviews)
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2011
Dear Fellow WW II Av-Fans:
I’ve had the magnificent Griehl/Dressel volume on the He 177, which has got to be one of the most “enigmatic” warplanes of WW II, and a whole LOT of things about the entire He 177 series of aircraft are covered in this volume as never before, in minute detail…the produced-in-volume 177A series, the B-series four-engined version, of which four prototypes were ordered (with three flown), the He 274 (two prototypes started, finished up by the French after the war) and the never-completed He 277 “Amerika Bomber” design, which, from what I’ve read in this book, could have been the most likely Nazi heavy bomber design to have been used against the USA had the Luftwaffe managed to have ever had them, at the right time.
The “oft-told story” in earlier books about the He 177’s history, about the “He 177B” being nothing more than a cover designation for the never-built He 277 is simply EXPLODED all to pieces from the text of this book. It’s easy to surmise from carefully reading this volume’s text that a series of events and documented requests of the German Air Ministry (RLM) concerning an “He 277”, whose earliest known mention emerged no later than February 1943, nearly a year after the Amerika Bomber design competition itself started, much more firmly link it with the Amerika Bomber program, from the evidence given in this volume.
A never-before detailed progression of the He 274 aircraft’s development is also given here…as well as Hermann Goering’s hatred of the He 177A’s “welded-together engines” as he termed them from August 1942 onward, regarding the sloppily cobbled up DB 606 and DB 610 “power system” powerplants, needed to pull a B-17-sized aircraft skywards and yet have streamlining enough to do—dive bombing missions??
All in all, fans of the “gruesome Griffin” have been waiting for a book like this…details about the He 177 that haven’t been revealed previously, and if you can get a copy of this fine volume, get your hands on one..! (The German language edition of this book bears the title “Heinkel He 177-277-274: Eine luftfahrtgeschichtliche Dokumentation”, and was published in 1989, as most likely the “original” version of this reviewed English-language version of it – the earlier German edition bears the “longer ISBN number” of 978-3613012998.)