Aviation History - July 2016

july 2016 AH 43

OPPOSITE: (TOP) NATIONAL ARCHIVES, (BOTTOM) NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM; RIGHT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

never produced. In the real world, the best the He-219 could

achieve was parity with some of the de Havillands. The supreme

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the Hütter Hu-211, which would have created a U-2-like He-219

using the Uhu’s main structure and engines with high-aspect-

ratio wooden wings and a V tail built by sailplane specialist

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but the prototype was destroyed during an air raid.

Keeping complex He-219s operable became increasingly

problematic as the war progressed. One Uhu pilot wrote: “It

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sion, usually less, and of those half either returned immediately

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it was onboard electrics that failed.”

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two or three days to air them out. Thanks to damp electrics, one

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RAF bomber, but when he pressed the trigger button, his land-

ing lights came on. He admitted that it was hard to say who was

more frightened—attacker or target.

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hen Germany surrendered in May 1945, few Uhus

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He-219s from a night-fighter base in Denmark

to England and sent the remaining three to

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craft were loaded aboard a British escort carrier and shipped

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One unusual piece of He-219 technology that intrigued the

Army Air Forces testers and has thus survived is the “ribbon

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design have since been used to brake everything from top-fuel

dragsters to space capsules.

Of the three Uhus that came to the U.S., one was scrapped at

Chicago’s Orchard Place Airport (today O’Hare). Another sim-

ply disappeared, doubtless scrapped elsewhere. The Freeman

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plete static restoration at the

National Air and Space Mu -

seum’s Udvar-Hazy Center

at Dulles Airport. European

Avia tion Curator Evelyn

Crellin points out that it is

actually something of a com-

posite, having been reassem-

bled at Freeman Field with

engines and vertical stabilizers

from the other two Uhus.

Crellin can’t give a firm

date for the completion of the

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the fuselage and the huge,

one-piece wing. If it can be

done inside the Udvar-Hazy

museum building, where the

wing and fuselage are cur-

rently displayed along with the

two restored DB 603 engines,

it might happen as soon as this

summer. If the components

have to be reunited in the

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will take substantially longer.

Even then, there will be

one task left: replication of

the stag’s horn FuG 220 radar

dipoles and mast, which dis-

appeared long ago. Though

Smithsonian restorers could

easily mock them up from

lengths of tubing and fab-

ricated pieces based on old

photo graphs, they insist on

creating functional replicas of

the original units, and all that

is known about them is that

they were made of steel, alu-

minum and wood. No records

of their actual construction

have yet been found, though

one origi nal antenna array

exists in a museum in Europe,

which the Smithsonian will

borrow and reverse-engineer.

Another example of the

workshop’s insistence on

authenticity is that during res-

toration, removal of the Uhu’s

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original wave-pattern cam-

ouflage paint still in perfect

condition. It has been left

untouched so that future

researchers and historians

will be able to examine it.

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back in place, museum visi-

tors will never see that there

are areas of the airplane that

remain unrestored.

The Smithsonian airplane

is an apt example of the

He-219’s unproductiveness. It

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exactly 3½ hours before being

ferried to France for shipment

to the U.S. That time would

account for a single produc-

tion test flight plus the trip

from the Heinkel factory to

Denmark. In 10 months, it

never flew a single combat

mission. 

Contributing editor Stephan

Wilkinson recommends for

further reading: Heinkel He

219: An Illustrated History

of Germany’s Premier

6QOP\ÅOP\MZ, by Roland Remp;

and He 219 Uhu Volume I

and Volume II, by Marek J.

Murawski and Marek Rys.

THE HE-219 COULD

DO NOTHING BUT

FLY AT NIGHT TO

SHOOT DOWN

LARGE, SLOW

BOMBERS. DURING

THE DAY IT WAS

ITSELF LARGE

AND SLOW.