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Aviation History
1996
1996 - 3348.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Flying a legend Despite being more than six decades old, the Junkers Ju-52 is still going strong. HERMAN DE WULF/BRUSSELS HOW LONG DO aircraft last? The leg endary Junkers Ju-52/3m tri-motor trans port is 60 years old and still extremely popular - especially for pleasure-trips. One airworthy example is operated in Lufthansa colours, and is booked to capacity most of the time. People pay DM2 60 ($ 166) for a scenic flight lasting no more than 45min. "Tanteju" (Auntie Junkers), as the historicjunkers airliner is affec tionately known in Germany, cruises at a sedate 100kt(185km/h),rarelyanyhigherthan2,000ft above ground level, and operates only in visual- flight-rules conditions. It carries justl 6 passen gers, but they travel in pre-Second World War leather-seated luxury, watching the landscape moving slowly through large windows while enjoying plenty of elbow room. By todays stan dards, the corrugated duraluminiumJu-52/3m is a simple aircraft, with fixed landing-gear, pro pelled by three thirsty air-cooled engines (Pratt & Whitney Hornets in this case) which burn 400 litres of 100LL Avgas an hour at 2,2 00RPM to achieve the performance of a Cessna 172. Its design goes back to the 1930s, when Dipl Ing Ernst Zindel, making full use of Professor Hugo Junkers' experience with corrugated alu minium skins, built a single-engined freighter, which became the Ju-52. In 1932, the design was developed into a three-engined variant, the Ju-52/3m, which became an immediate success. Lufthansa ordered the type as its standard air liner and, at one time, operated a fleet of 230. The type was exported worldwide, rivalling the Douglas DC-3 for success in the 1930s. The demands of the Second World War led to 3,500 aircraft eventually being built. NORWEGIAN ROLE In 1936, Lufthansa had acquired an example which was registered as D-AQUI. It served with the airline until it was sold to Norway. There it was captured by the Wehrmacht in 1940 and turned into a floatplane. After the war, it was returned to Norway, and was flown on domes tic services between fjords until being sold to a South American operator in Ecuador, which used it extensively in the Amazon jungle. At the end of what was thought to be its useful eco nomic life it was left to rot at Quito Airport. It was discovered by a US aircraft enthusiast, who restored it and flew it to the USA, where it joined the US air-show circuit as "Iron Anny". By 1986, Lufthansa was looking for an oldtimer to be used as a "tradizionsflugzug" for public- relations reasons. The airline, which at one time had operated 230 of the type, bought its aircraft back for an undisclosed sum (said to be "slightly less than $1 million, including freight). It was flown across the Atlantic by its former owner to Hamburg, where it was dismantled and com pletely overhauled in Lufthansa's maintenance department. Corrosion had taken its toll and many pieces had to be remanufactured. When rolled out it was effectively a new aircraft. For historical reasons, it bears its original registra tion D-AQUI, but it is entered as D-CDLH in the German aircraft register. The Ju-52/3m is seen by many as a clever public-relations instrument. It certainly is a fly ing museum piece. Yet the aircraft is operated under the latest European regulations govern ing commercial flying. As such it does not fit into Lufthansa's normal operation, so a spe cialised non-profit organisation was set up: the Deutshe Lufthansa Beriin-Tempelhof (DLBT), heavily sponsored by the parent air- 28 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 18 - 31 December 1996
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