Heinkel He 50

The Heinkel He 50 was a biplane dive bomber designed and produced by Heinkel in the early 1930s. It began as a 1931 order from the Imperial Japanese Navy for a two-seat dive bomber able to carry 250 kilograms of bombs and to fly with wheels or floats, and it became the basis of the Aichi D1A. The first prototype, completed in summer 1931, proved underpowered, and other engines fixed this. The Luftwaffe adopted the type, and a batch of 60 He 50A aircraft was built in 1933. In 1935 it went to the first Luftwaffe dive-bombing unit and later equipped nine more, but the Henschel Hs 123 and Junkers Ju 87 steadily replaced it and it moved to training. In spring 1943 survivors were gathered for night harassment sorties on the Eastern Front, which lasted until October 1944.