Price: £20.00

Heinkel 219 Uhu

Produced in the face of severe official opposition, the Heinkel 219 Uhu, (Owl) might have swung the tide for Germany against the RAF night bomber offensive, had it been produced in sufficient quantity. It was fast and heavilly armed and on its initial sortie shot down five RAF lancasters in one night. Soon after the Uhu began to achieve success against the De Haviland Mosquito unarmed bomber which had previously been considered invulnerable at night.The model illustrates an aircraft from Stab 1/NJG-1 flown by Hauptman Paul Forster during June 1944. 1/NJG-1 was the only Nachtjagdgruppe to be equipped with the Heinkel 219 through it's various production configurations. The unit suffered from aircraft being in continually short supply, but still performed effectively against RAF heavy bombers at night, although it met it's match in the De Haviland Mosquito night fighter. The Heinkel 219 was time consuming and expensive to produce but was by far the best night fighter produced by Germany during the second world war.

Performance

Maximum level speed: 363 mph at 20,000ft
Weight: 33,289 lb fully loaded
Powerplant: Two Daimler Benz 603 1,800 hp engines