Heinkel

Heinkel Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft production company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It's noted for creating bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in The Second World War and for significant contributions to highspeed flight, with all the pioneering examples of the successful liquidfueled rocket plus a turbojetpowered aircraft in aviation history, with both Heinkel models' first flights happening shortly before the outbreak of The Second World War in Europe.

Heinkel was set up at Warnemunde in 1922, following the constraints on German air travel enforced by the Treaty of Versailles were relaxed. It was accompanied by the 2-engine Heinkel He 111 Doppel-Blitz, which became a mainstay of the Luftwaffe during The Second World War for a bomber. Heinkel's most significant designers now were the double Gunter brothers, Siegfried and Walter, and Heinrich Hertel. The company's headquarters was in Rostock afterwards known as Heinkel-Nord (Heinkel-North), having a factory airfield in the Schmarl area of the town (then known as "Marienehe") with an added Heinkel-Sud facility in Schwechat, Austria, following the Anschluss in 1938.

The Heinkel company is the most closely related to aircraft utilized by the Luftwaffe during The Second World War. This started with the adaptation of the He 70 and, particularly, the He 111, to be utilized as bombers. Heinkel also supplied the Luftwaffe's only operational heavy bomber, the Heinkel He 177, although this is never deployed in substantial numbers. The German Luftwaffe equipped both of the bombers with the Z-Gerat, Y-Gerat, and Knickebein, developed by Johannes Plendl, and consequently they were one of the very first aircraft to feature complex nighttime navigation products, typical in most commercial airplanes now.

The firm also supplied the Luftwaffe with a superb night fighter, the Heinkel He 219, which likewise experienced politics and was created just in small numbers.

From 1941 till the end of the war, the firm was merged with engine maker Hirth to form Heinkel - Hirth, giving the capacity to the company of making its powerplants.

The Heinkel name was also behind pioneering work in rocket development and jet engine. Production never was never reached by this latter aircraft yet, because the RLM wanted Heinkel to concentrate on bomber production and instead promoted the growth of the competing Messerschmitt Me 262. Very late within the war, a Heinkel jet-fighter eventually took to the air while the Heinkel He 162, but it had hardly entered service in time of Germany's surrender.

After the war, Heinkel was forbidden from aircraft and instead built motor scooters, bikes, and also the Heinkel microcar. The business finally returned to aircraft within the mid1950s, licence building F-104 Starfighters for the West German Luftwaffe. In 1965, the business was absorbed by Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke, which was consequently absorbed by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm in 1980 and later became a part of EADS.