Junkers Ju 52

Ju 52
Ju-Air Junkers Ju-52/3m in flight over Austria (July 2013)
Role	Transport aircraft, medium bomber, airliner
Manufacturer	Junkers
Designer	Ernst Zindel
First flight	13 October 1930 (Ju 52/1m); 7 March 1932 (Ju 52/3m)
Status	Active
Primary users	Luftwaffe Luft Hansa Spanish Air Force
Produced	1931–1945 (Germany) 1945–1947 (France) 1945–1952 (Spain)
Number built	4,845

The Junkers Ju 52/3m (nicknamed Tante Ju ("Aunt Ju") and Iron Annie) is a German trimotor transport aircraft manufactured from 1931 to 1952. Initially designed with a single engine but subsequently produced as a trimotor it saw both civilian and military service during the 1930s and 1940s. In a civilian role, it flew with over twelve air carriers including Swissair and Deutsche Luft Hansa as an airliner and freight hauler. In a military role, it flew with the Luftwaffe as a troop and cargo transport and briefly as a medium bomber. The Ju 52 continued in postwar service with military and civilian air fleets well into the 1980s.

The Ju 52 was similar to the company's previous Junkers W 33, although larger. In 1930, Ernst Zindel and his team designed the Ju 52 at the Junkers works at Dessau. The aircraft's unusual duralumin metal skin, pioneered by Junkers during World War I, strengthened the whole structure.

The Ju 52 had a low cantilever wing, the midsection of which was built into the fuselage, forming its underside. It was formed around four pairs of circular cross-section duralumin spars with a corrugated surface that provided torsional stiffening. A narrow control surface, with its outer section functioning as the aileron, and the inner section functioning as a flap, ran along the whole trailing edge of each wing panel, well separated from it. The inner flap section lowered the stalling speed and the arrangement became known as the Doppelflügel, or "double wing".

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