Pioneered jet aircraft. He founded his firm 1922 and built the first jet aircraft 1939. During World War II his company was Germany's biggest producer of warplanes, mostly propeller-driven. Notable Heinkel aircraft of World War II include the He 111, originally designed as a civilian airliner but adapted almost immediately as a medium bomber. It was used extensively in air raids over England 1940, but was found to be vulnerable to attack and so was redeployed as a night bomber and mine-layer.
