Heinkel He 119

The Heinkel He 119 was an experimental single-propeller monoplane with two coupled engines, developed in Germany as a private venture by Heinkel to test radical ideas of the Gunter brothers. It was originally conceived as a reconnaissance bomber fast enough to elude every fighter. Two of the three crew sat one on each side of a driveshaft that ran aft to a coupled pair of Daimler-Benz DB 601 engines mounted above the wing centre section, a drive unit known as the DB 606. Only eight prototypes were completed and the aircraft never entered production, mainly because of the shortage of DB 601 engines to build the DB 606 power systems. The third prototype was a twin-float seaplane tested at Travemunde and scrapped in 1942. On 22 November 1937 the fourth prototype set a class record of 505 km/h with a 1,000 kg payload over 1,000 km.