List of airworthy Ju 52s
At the moment there are eight airworthy Junkers Ju 52 worldwide, four of them on scheduled sight seeing flights in Switzerland.
| Owner | Registration | Version | Homebase | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ju-Air | HB-HOP HB-HOT HB-HOS |
Ju 52/3m g4e | Dübendorf Air Base (near Zürich)/Switzerland[1] | Former A-701/702/703 of Swiss Air Force, original BMW-engines.
HB-HOT was operated on a 2012 North American tour with sponsor Rimowa luggage.[2] |
| Ju-Air | HB-HOY | CASA 352L | Usually Mönchengladbach/Germany or Dübendorf Air Base/Switzerland[3] | Now fitted with original BMW-engines, was on public display at Düsseldorf Airport/Germany before as D-CIAK. |
| Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung | D-CDLH | Ju 52/3m | Hamburg | Oldest airworthy Ju, in historic Deutsche Luft Hansa colors as D-AQUI (the livery this plane wore in 1936), P&W-engines, now with 3-blades propellers, til 1984 known as Iron Annie N52JU. This is the JU-52 restored and flown for many years by the late aviation and science fiction writer Martin Caidin. |
| South African Airways Museum Society | ZS-AFA | CASA 352L | Rand Airport/South Africa | Bought from England in 1984 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of South African Airways |
| Military Aviation Museum | N352JU | CASA 352L | Virginia Beach Airport/United States | Formerly owned by Commemorative Air Force, operated by MAM since August 2010. Converted to Pratt & Whitney R-1340 geared engines, fitted with 3-blade propellers. Once thought to be serial number 67 (built May 1950), matching data plates in the cabin and on the outside of the fuselage revealed it to actually be ser. no. 77 (built January 1949). Assigned identification number T2B 176 by the Spanish Air Force.[4] |
| Amicale J.B. Salis | F-AZJU | CASA 352 | Cerny/La Ferté Alais near Paris/France | Restoration finished in 2003 |
The oldest airworthy Ju 52
D-AQUI, the oldest airworthy Ju 52 in existence, was produced in 1936, with Ser. No. 5489 and given Reg. D-AQUI Fritz Simon. She was sold to DNL Det Norske Luftfartselskap A/S in 1936 and registered as LN-DAH, Falken, only to be confiscated by the German Army in 1940. At this time it was once again given the old D-AQUI registration, but renamed Kurt Wintgens.
After the war, the Allies returned it to its former owners, DNL. It was re-registered as LN-KAF Askeladden and served on the Norwegian coast Tromsø - Kirkenes for SAS from February 1948 until 1956.
After sitting, parked, for a year at Oslo Airport, Fornebu, it was sold to TAO (Transportes Aéreos Orientales) in Ecuador, with new registration HB-ABS Amazonas issued in July 1957. It was shipped to Ecuador in wooden crates. When it arrived the wings and tail still wore the distinctive blue lettered SAS livery. It was reassembled at the Ecuadorean Air Force Military Base in Salinas, Guayas in the summer of 1957 under the direction of former Lufthansa pilot Christoph Drexel. TAO flew the plane in scheduled airline service from Quito at 10,000 feet elevation to settlements in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazonian region (500 to 1000 feet altitude) of Ecuador with captain Gonzalo Ruales usually flying the left seat. The plane routinely cleared mountain passes at 13,000 feet of altitude, landing on unimproved landing strips often claimed from the shores of tributaries of the Amazon.
It was taken out of service in 1963 as gathering momentum of oil exploration in the Amazonian region began to demand aircraft of increased lift capacity. The aircraft remained parked at Quito Airport for six years. It was bought by a former United States Air Force pilot, Lester Weaver for $52,500. It was given registry N130LV, but American authorities certified it as "experimental".
In 1975, American writer Martin Caidin bought it for $52,500.[5] It was christened Iron Annie, register N52JU. It saw extensive use at air shows,[6] and was based at Gainesville, Florida. Caidin set a number of records with Iron Annie, among them the shortest takeoff ever made with a Ju-52/3m and the world's record for the most wing-walkers on one airplane at the same time.[7]
Lufthansa acquired it in December 1984: It was flown to Hamburg via Greenland, Iceland and England, the only west to east Atlantic flight of an Ju 52. After a year it took to the air again, with the official registration painted under the tail as D-CDLH. The old registration D-AQUI is painted on the wings. The aircraft's name is now Tempelhof.[8]
Damage discovered during routine inspections at the end of 2015 led to Lufthansa temporarily grounding Tempelhof until summer 2016.[9][10]
References
- ↑ Ju-Air site
- ↑ "Rimowa". Retrieved 9 June 2012.
- ↑ Ju-Air site
- ↑ "Warbirds Over The Beach"; Official Program Guide, May 18–20, 2012; Military Aviation Museum; Pungo, Virginia, p. 41
- ↑ Caidin, Martin. Ragwings and Heavy Iron (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company), 1984, page 231
- ↑ #5489 during its US years
- ↑ Caidin, Martin. Ragwings and Heavy Iron: The Agony and Ecstasy of Flying History's Greatest Warbirds (Boston: Houghton Mifflin), 1984.
- ↑ http://www.dlbs.de/en/Fleet/Junkers-JU-52/index.php Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung historic aircraft foundation site
- ↑ http://lufthansaflyer.boardingarea.com/lufthansas-ju52-grounded-indefinitely/ LUFTHANSA’s Ju52 Grounded Indefinitely
- ↑ "Tante Ju" wird stolze 80 Jahre jung