Junkers
7 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers [ˈjʊŋkɐs], was a major German aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer. It was founded in Dessau, Germany, in 1895 by Hugo Junkers, initially manufacturing boilers and radiators. During World War I and following the war, the company became famous for its pioneering all-metal aircraft. During World War II the company produced the German air force's planes, as well as piston and jet aircraft engines, albeit in the absence of its founder who had been removed by the Nazis in 1934. With a partial relocation of the Junkers firm to the Fili western suburb of Moscow, the Junkers firm was able to restart its aircraft manufacturing concern within the borders of the Soviet Union in 1922, the partly revitalized Junkers firm developed a series of progressively larger civil aircraft including the single-engined G.24 and three-engine G.31. With the expiration of treaty restrictions in 1926, Junkers introduced the Junkers W33 and Junkers W34 series, which did find significant commercial success via large production orders in passenger, freight hauling, and, somewhat later, military configurations.
Aircraft Types
Junkers F 13
The Junkers F 13 was a German single-engine airliner that first flew on 25 June 1919 and became the first all-metal transport aircraft to enter production service worldwide. Its corrugated duralumin skin, cantilever wing and enclosed cabin for four passengers set the pattern that airliners have followed since. Production is most often put at 322 aircraft, built at Dessau and under licence abroad, and at the type's mid-1920s peak it was estimated to be carrying some 40 percent of world air traffic. Five originals survive in museums, and a flying reproduction returned the type to the air in 2016.
Junkers Ju 188
The Junkers Ju 188 was a German twin-engined bomber and reconnaissance aircraft of the Second World War, developed from the Ju 88 as an interim successor while the Ju 288 Bomber B design stalled. A single glazed canopy in place of the Ju 88's stepped nose, longer wings and a choice of Jumo 213 or BMW 801 engines in interchangeable installations set it apart. It first flew in 1942 and entered service in 1943; 1,076 were built, about half of them reconnaissance versions. In History of War's judgment it arrived too late to affect the war's course. French naval aviation flew captured examples after 1945.
Junkers Ju 390
The Junkers Ju 390 was a German six-engined long-range aircraft of the Second World War, a stretched derivative of the Ju 290 built for the Amerikabomber programme, which sought a bomber able to strike New York from bases in Europe. The first prototype flew on 20 October 1943 and performed well, but the production contracts were cancelled in mid-1944, and whether the second prototype was ever completed is disputed. The type is best known for the claim that one of its flights reached to within 12 miles of New York in 1944: the story traces to wartime prisoner interrogations, and later research has rejected it.
Junkers Ju 52
The Junkers Ju 52 was a German transport aircraft designed by Ernst Zindel. First flown in 1930 with a single engine, it became in its three-engine Ju 52/3m form the standard European airliner of the 1930s and the Luftwaffe's primary transport of the Second World War, carrying 17 passengers or three tons of freight. A total of 4,835 were built, and a handful still fly.
Junkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 — the Stuka — was a German two-seat dive bomber that first flew in 1935 and fought from the Spanish Civil War to the end of the Second World War. In a steep dive it was exceptionally accurate, and where the Luftwaffe held air superiority it was devastating; slow and poorly armed, it was defenceless where it did not. Late versions hunted tanks on the Eastern Front. Only two intact examples survive.
Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 was a German twin-engined combat aircraft, first flown in 1936, that served through the Second World War as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft and torpedo bomber. Designed to a high-speed bomber requirement, it stayed in production until 1945 and was built in almost 15,000 examples, the most of any German twin-engined type of the period. Only two complete wartime aircraft survive on museum display.
Junkers W 33
The Junkers W 33 was a German single-engined all-metal transport monoplane of the 1920s, developed from the Junkers F 13 airliner and powered by a Junkers L5 inline engine. Built at Dessau from 1927 to 1934, with a few assembled in Sweden and the Soviet Union, it worked as a transport and mailplane for operators in many countries and set world endurance and distance records in 1927. One aircraft, the Bremen, made the first east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic by aeroplane, flying from Ireland to Canada in April 1928 against the prevailing winds; it is now displayed at Bremen Airport.