In this video, we talk about the Heinkel He 113, a World War 2era fighter aircraft from Nazi Germany pushed and promoted as an incredible fighter a "superfighter" of sorts better than anything the Allied forces had in their arsenals. We first talk about the He 113's two predecessors, the He 112, built as a competitor to the iconic Messerschmitt Bf 109, and the He 100, built to be far better than the Bf 109 (possibly also built out of spite). We talk about the design history of each of these aircraft and their eventual failure to be adopted, with the He 112 being sold in small numbers to other countries and the He 100 being relegated to doing nothing, despite setting speed records.

We then talk about the evolution from the He 100 to the He 113, with the He 100 planes being repurposed for propaganda to make countries like Britain think they existed. We talk about how this propaganda campaign worked, how the story got out, how effective the campaign was, and how Allied countries reacted. We end by pondering the reason for the propaganda stunt.

Link to HistoryNet Article: https://www.historynet.com/100heinke...

Link to some archive copies of The Aeroplane Spotter: https://archive.org/details/aeroplane...
https://archive.org/details/aeroplane...
https://archive.org/details/aeroplane...