Fuel Tanks

Fuel System Overview

The He 111 H-6 comes equipped with 5 fuel tanks, two 700 liter inner tanks, two 1025 liter outer tanks, and one 835 liter fuselage tank. The inner tanks serve as feed tanks and fuel is drawn directly from them to supply the engines. The outer tanks and the fuselage tank are storage tanks are intended to top off the inner tanks once their fuel levels drop below a desirable level. The fuel tank layout of the H-16 is similar to the H-6 except that the He 111 H-16 lacks the 835 liter internal fuselage fuel tank.

Oil System Overview

Oil tanks are not modeled in game, meaning that leaks from them are impossible. The only location where oil leaks can occur is in the area of the oil coolers, which are located behind and above the engines.

Internal Fuselage Fuel Tank (He 111 H-6)

Originally the civilian series of He 111 only came equipped with two internal inner wing tanks for its fuel supply. Each wing tank having a maximum capacity of 700 liters, permitting the Heinkel 111 a total fuel capacity of 1200 liters. It was possible to attain 1400 liters but this was not practical as it was partially limited by the strength of the undercarriage and the added weight of the aircraft when fully loaded with passengers and cargo. The location of each inner wing tank is between the two main wing spars, between the fuselage and the respective left or right engine while being just aft of each wings 120 liter engine oil lubricant tank. There are two 120 liter engine oil wing tanks present, one within each wing and forward of the internal fuel tank, both of them allow for a total maximum engine oil capacity of 210 liters. *Note that it is not recommended to fill the wing oil tanks to their maximum capacity of 120 liters (for total capacity of 240 L) because the engine oil has a tendency to foam up during engine operation, necessitating there be empty expansion room for the foam.

The fuel & oil tank scheme was essentially unchanged and carried over to the military variants of the He 111 up until the E-3 variant, after which improvements to the undercarriage allowed the addition of two extra wing fuel tanks installed toward the outside of each wing. These outer wing tanks extended the He 111 E-3's fuel capacity to 3450 liters. Each outer wing fuel tank having a capacity of 1025 liters, located once again between the two main wing spars but now on the outer side of the wing from the engine. Later the fuel capacity was further expanded with the He 111 E-5 variant which implemented an auxiliary 835 liter fuselage tank in place of the left bomb bay. The maximum total fuel capacity attainable was now increased to 4285 liters. Additionally an extra 120 liter fuselage oil tank was installed alongside the fuselage fuel tank in the center of the bomb-bay. Unlike the wing oil tanks, the fuselage oil tank could be filled to the top with oil as its primary purpose is to top off the wing oil tanks when their oil levels are low.  A drawback of this fuselage fuel and oil tank scheme is that it had the negative effect of negating half the use of the internal bomb load capacity from 2000kg to 1000kg. As a result of this ordnance was usually mounted externally on ETC 2000 or PVC 1006 racks (and Schloß 2000/XIII  Schloß 500/XII mounts in later H variants) which caused a tremendous increase in drag, lowering the maximum speed attainable by 30 to 35 kmh. However, the benefit of having these fuselage fuel and oil tanks increased the range from 1800km (without the tanks) to 2500km. Allowing the He 111 to bomb distant naval targets such as merchant ships but also allowing for long range strategic bombing operations.

After the E-5 certain variants of the He 111 would still utilize this auxiliary fuselage tank scheme. These notable variants are the P-4, H-4, H-5, and H-6 variants. In these variants it was still possible to remove the factory installed fuselage tanks and replace the missing left-side bomb bay with internal ESAC bomb racks given a conversion kit. Likewise it was also possible to add the 835 liter fuel tank as a modification to other 111 variants.

The 835 liter auxiliary fuselage fuel tank is currently present in-game on the He 111 H-6, giving it a total capacity of 4285 liters of fuel. As a consequence of this the internal bomb loads are limited to 16x SC50 or 4x SC250.