World War II Database

The He 177 Greif ("Griffin") were long-range heavy bombers of the German Luftwaffe. An unusual feature in the design called for two engines in each nacelle driving a single propeller, which was a result of the German Air Ministry's demand that He 177 bombers should be capable of dive bombing, which was impossible with four propellers. This unique engine configuration, unfortunately, increased the chance of accidental fire as any oil leakage would drip onto the hot exhaust manifolds on the two middle cylinder banks. The frequent fires with earlier variants of the He 177 design led to the nickname Reichsfeuerzeug, "the lighter of the Reich"; the problem with fires was never totally resolved in later variants. Because of the dive bombing requirement, the wing and structure were strengthened beyond a typical horizontal bomber design called for, therefore He 177 bombers' speed and bomb load to suffer. In the end, they were only able to achieve shallow dive attacks, so most were used as a horizontal bomber only. When production ended due to the Fighter Emergency Program of 1944 which called for a halt in all bomber production in favor of fighters, 1,184 aircraft were built.

A small number of true four-engined variants were built under the designation He 277, but because they were not officially sanctioned by the Luftwaffe, the variant never entered production.

SPECIFICATIONS

A-5

Machinery	Two Daimler-Benz DB 610 (twin DB 605) 24-cylinder liquid-cooled engines, rated at 2,950hp each
Armament	1x7.92mm nose MG 81J, 1x20mm ventral MG 151, 2x13mm forward dorsal MG 131, 1x13mm aft MG 131, 1x20mm tail MG 151, up to 7,200kg of bombs or two mines, missiles, or torpedoes
Span	9.99 m
Length	9.99 m
Height	6.70 m
Wing Area	99.99 m²
Weight, Empty	16,800 kg
Weight, Loaded	31,000 kg
Speed, Maximum	472 km/h
Service Ceiling	7,080 m
Range, Normal	1,540 km
Range, Maximum	5,600 km

Photographs

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