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5 unusual facts about Heinkel He 177


European theatre of World War II

Therefore, German bombers were smaller than their British equivalents, and Germany never developed a fully successful four engined heavy bomber equivalent to the Lancaster or B-17, with only the similarly sized Heinkel He 177 placed into production and made operational for such duties with the Luftwaffe in the later war years.

Heinkel He 177

While the German bombsights of the 1930s were quite lacking, the follow-on versions of the Lotfernrohr 7 proved to be arguably as accurate as the American Norden bombsight.

In early September 1944, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was ordered to supply an aircrew for a He 177 that the French Maquis and Allied units in Vichy France would take control of at the airfield at Blagnac near Toulouse, where elements of both the He 177A-equipped KG 4 and KG 100 Luftwaffe bomber wings were based.

The Manchester, like the A-series Greif (with its coupled DB 606s and 610s) had depended on two very powerful but in practice troublesome 24-cylinder powerplants, the British Rolls-Royce Vulture, but by 1941 had been redesigned with four Rolls-Royce Merlins, as the Avro Lancaster.

French Air Force operated at least two He 177 A-3s left behind by the Germans and rebuilt by SNCASE at Blagnac.



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