Heinkel He 118

The Heinkel He 118 was a prototype German monoplane dive bomber that lost out to the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka in the 1930s and was never ordered by the Luftwaffe. The Gunter brothers designed it with the elliptical wing planform and rounded tail surfaces typical of their work of the period. It was limited to glide bombing, with the second crew member acting as bomb aimer, and trials showed a maximum dive angle of only 50 degrees. In June 1936 Ernst Udet took it on a test flight, but the propeller feathered in the first dive, shearing the reduction gears, and the aircraft broke up, leaving him to parachute to safety. Of the 15 built, two went to Japan as the DXHe1. Heinkel used another as a flying testbed for the HeS 3 turbojet, and in July 1939 it flew under jet power, the first time any aircraft did so.