HeS 30 | |
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Type | Jet engine (gas turbine) |
National origin | Germany |
Manufacturer | Heinkel-Hirth Motorenbau |
Designed by | Adolf Müller |
Variants | Heinkel HeS 40 |
The HeS 30 (HeS - Heinkel Strahltriebwerke) was an early jet engine, originally designed by Adolf Müller at Junkers, but eventually built and tested at Heinkel. It was possibly the best of the "Class I" engines, a class that included the more famous BMW 003 and Junkers Jumo 004, but work on the design was stopped by the Reichluftfahrtministerium (RLM) as they felt the Heinkel team should put all their efforts into other designs.
The HeS 30 was designed before the RLM introduced standardized naming for their engine projects. It was assigned the official name 109-006, and it was sometimes called the HeS 006 as a short form. Development ended just as these names were being introduced, so "HeS 30" naming is much more common.
Herbert Wagner started engine developments at Junkers in 1936, placing Adolf Müller in overall charge of the project. In 1938 Junkers purchased Junkers Motoren (Jumo), formerly a separate company. In October 1939, under pressure from the RLM, Junkers moved all their engine work to Jumo's Dessau factories from their main plants at Magdeburg. Müller would have ended up in a subordinate role after the move, but decided to leave instead. He and about half of the original Junkers team were scooped up by Ernst Heinkel and moved to his campus, where Hans von Ohain was working on the Heinkel HeS 3 engine.
Of all of the designs Müller brought with him, the HeS 30 was simplest and easiest to build. Müller had already built a test engine while still at Junkers, however it was only able to run at about half its designed RPM, which limited compression and required a continuous supply of external compressed air. Junkers abandoned the design when Müller left, choosing to develop the Jumo team's simpler design instead. Müller promised Heinkel he could have the engine up and running on a testbed within one year of completing the move, a promise he was ultimately unable to keep.