This is part of a page from my book about the He 100:
This was published in 2007. This is essentially a colorized version, executed by the great Tom Tullis, of one of my line drawings of the V8. I should also note that since the only known photos of this aircraft are in black and white, the colors Mr. Tullis used are based on sheer guesswork, and my guesswork at that. Of the few known photos of the V8 taken on the day Dieterle set the speed record, only one or two show the aircraft in any detail, and neither shows anything of the empennage or, for that matter, much of anything of fuselage behind the cockpit. The paragraph immediately above the drawing explains some aspects of it. Otherwise:
-The wing root fillet panels, removable engine cowl panels, the nose ring, and the hatch over the hand-starter fitting were painted, but the color is not known. My guess was RLM 02 Gray.
- The putty filling the seams on the side of the cockpit and engine cowling are easily visible but, again, the color is unknown. According to my correspondents, the putty might have been gray, gray-green, or even rust-colored.
- Contrary to one of the flaws in my 2007 text, the control surfaces on the He 100 were covered in fabric. "Unpainted" fabric panels shown on some German aircraft were actually coated with some sort of red primer, which may explain the very dark coloration of the rudder in other photos of prototype and pre-production He 100s. I should also note that a few years after my book was published, I was given a Heinkel Company document which indicates that the rudder on the V8 may actually have been made of wood.
- The "Heinkel" name and maintenance stencils on the engine cowling can be seen in the above-mentioned photo. It seems safe to assume that the winged-H logo, as well as the truncated fin flash, would have appeared on the V8 during the speed record runs. Not incidentally, the red stripe for the fin flash was cut short so that it wouldn't cover the oil system cooling panel forming most of the fin.
The overall configuration of the empennage can be seen in two of the three known photos of the He 100 V8 taken when it was in the Deutsches Museum, in Munich. In the third photo, taken the morning after an air raid comprehensively destroyed the museum, bits of the wreckage of the V8 are identifiable.
The aircraft marked "42C+11" was in fact the short-lived He 100 V3. The V3 had the older, pre-production empennage, but it did otherwise strongly resemble the V8, and Huckebein's color scheme may not be far from the mark. Personally, I suspect that apart from the unpainted wing leading edges, the white fin tip and underside of the nose ring, etc., the aircraft may have been painted in RLM 62 Green on the upper AND lower surfaces.
Thank you Huckebein. It's good to FINALLY have an He 100 to fly, and your skins will enhance the experience.
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Topic: He-100V-8 Heinz Dieteler (Read 3532 times)
