Junkers Ju 52/3m (Tante Ju)

Updated: October 2026 – Corrugated metal gleams in the sun, three radial engines saw through the air, and you hear the drone before you see the aircraft: the Junkers Ju 52, affectionately called Tante Ju in Germany, is one of the best-known aircraft in aviation history. She was the backbone of the early Lufthansa, and until 2018 you could still fly in her. Here you will learn how to recognize her, which versions exist, what became of the Lufthansa Ju and Ju-Air and where you can still get her in front of your lens today.

What is the Junkers Ju 52?

The Ju 52/3m is a three-engine all-metal low-wing aircraft for up to 17 passengers, built at the Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke in Dessau. The design was led by Ernst Zindel. At the beginning, though, there was no passenger aircraft: Junkers planned the Ju 52 as a single-engine freighter, and the Ju 52/1m first flew in 1930. The three-engine variant grew out of it, and the first Ju 52/3m took off on March 7, 1932.

With it Junkers hit the nerve of the time. The Ju 52/3m was rugged, coped with short and unpaved runways and could be operated with wheels, floats or skis. Its ancestry is clear to see: Junkers had introduced corrugated metal and all-metal construction with the Junkers F 13, the world’s first all-metal airliner. The plant and its history are shown today by the Hugo Junkers Technology Museum in Dessau.

According to common figures, around 4,800 Ju 52 were built including license-built aircraft. That made it the most-built European airliner of its era.

Tante Ju at Luft Hansa

In May 1932, Deutsche Luft Hansa took delivery of its first Ju 52/3m. The trimotor quickly became the standard type: according to the literature, in 1938 the company flew around three quarters of its traffic with the Ju 52. The aircraft connected Berlin with destinations across Europe, flew to Spain and the Middle East and were also used in South America, Africa and Asia, in part via subsidiaries and partner companies. An important hub was Berlin-Tempelhof Airport, whose history is told in the article Tempelhof Airport.

By today’s standards, travel was not comfortable: the cabin had no pressurization, was loud and vibrated. In return the Ju 52 was reliable, and that counted for more than anything else in the 1930s. The cabin was heated, and oxygen masks were on hand for flights at higher altitude.

That Lufthansa cultivates Tante Ju as a heritage aircraft to this day has its origin exactly here. You can learn more about today’s airline on the page for Lufthansa and the Lufthansa Group.

War and the postwar years

The Ju 52 also has a dark side, which belongs to an honest assessment. As early as the Spanish Civil War, the Condor Legion used it as a transport and improvised bomber. In the Second World War it was the standard transport aircraft of the Luftwaffe: it carried paratroopers, supplies and wounded, flew as a minesweeper with a large magnetic ring under the fuselage and suffered heavy losses in operations such as Crete or Stalingrad.

After 1945 production did not end. In France, Amiot continued to build the aircraft, after the war as the AAC.1 Toucan. In Spain, CASA built the CASA 352, according to the literature 106 of them, plus 64 CASA 352L with Spanish engines. Many air forces flew the Ju 52 for decades more, including Spain, France, Portugal and Switzerland.

Version	Origin	Special feature
Ju 52/1m	Junkers, Dessau	single-engine freighter, only a few built
Ju 52/3m	Junkers, Dessau	the classic trimotor version in many sub-versions
AAC.1 Toucan	Amiot/AAC, France	License production, begun during the war and continued afterward
CASA 352 / 352L	CASA, Spain	License production, 352L with Spanish engines

The Swiss Air Force acquired three Ju 52/3m in 1939 and flew them until the early 1980s. These very three aircraft later became the nucleus of Ju-Air.

The Lufthansa Ju D-AQUI: an aircraft with three lives

The best-known Ju 52 of the present is D-AQUI. Junkers built it in 1936 in Dessau, it went to Luft Hansa and at first flew as a seaplane. Then its path led via Norway, where it served coastal routes as far as Kirkenes and after the war still flew for SAS, to Ecuador. There it was left standing in the early 1960s after an engine failure.

A US collector brought the wreck to the USA in 1970. During restoration it got Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engines instead of the original BMW 132 and flew as “Iron Annie” at air shows. In 1984 Lufthansa bought the aircraft back, ferried it across the Atlantic to Hamburg and had it overhauled at today’s Lufthansa Technik. From 1986 it flew under the registration D-CDLH, but with the historic lettering D-AQUI and the name “Berlin-Tempelhof”, looked after by the Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin Foundation.

For more than three decades it took passengers on sightseeing and scheduled flights. In 2015 it was placed under protection in Hamburg as a mobile monument. After structural findings, flight operations ended in August 2018, and in spring 2019 Lufthansa decided to retire the aircraft for good. After stops in Bremen and at Paderborn/Lippstadt Airport, according to reference works it has stood in Lufthansa’s Hangar One in Frankfurt since early 2026. The whole story is told in the article Junkers Ju 52: the Tante Ju.

Ju-Air: sightseeing flights with Swiss Tante Jus

When the Swiss Air Force retired its three Ju 52s in the early 1980s, the Association of Friends of the Swiss Air Force founded Ju-Air in Dübendorf in 1982. From 1983, the former military aircraft with the registrations HB-HOP, HB-HOS and HB-HOT flew civil sightseeing flights, and in 1997 the CASA 352 HB-HOY joined them. For many aviation fans, a flight with Ju-Air over the Alps was a lifelong dream.

On August 4, 2018, HB-HOT crashed at Piz Segnas in Graubünden, and all 20 people on board were killed. The Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board found considerable structural damage in its investigations, and the two remaining Ju 52s stayed on the ground. In March 2019, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) withdrew Ju-Air’s permit for commercial sightseeing flights.

And the fleet today? HB-HOP stands in the Flieger-Flab-Museum Dübendorf, HB-HOS went, dismantled, to the Wernigerode Aviation Museum in 2023, and the CASA HB-HOY already made its last flight in 2016. In 2022 Ju-Air declared a resumption of the Ju 52 sightseeing flights not possible for the time being; from 2020 it had already offered flights with replicas of the Junkers F 13 instead. If you want to trace the Ju 52 era in Dübendorf, you find the location under Flieger Flab Museum at Dübendorf airfield.

The three features that are enough to identify her

The final certainty comes from the registration. Because JU52 also applies to the CASA-built aircraft, in the register you often only see from the serial number whether a Junkers, an AAC.1 or a CASA stands in front of you.

Ju 52, DC-3, Twin Beech or An-2?

With vintage aircraft, mix-ups lie elsewhere than in everyday airline life. The finder helps narrow it down.

The Douglas DC-3 is the obvious comparison: same era, similar size, but two engines and smooth skin. With its more modern aerodynamics it replaced the Ju 52 in many fleets; its story is in the article Douglas DC-3. The Beechcraft Model 18 is much smaller and has a twin tail. The Antonov An-2 and the De Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide are ruled out as biplanes. And the Junkers F 13 also has corrugated metal, but only one engine and is much smaller – exactly with it, Ju-Air flies today.

Where you see the Ju 52 today

Flying Ju 52s have become real rarities by now. According to reference works, one example of the Amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis still appears at air shows in France, and in the USA the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach owns a CASA 352L. None of these aircraft takes passengers. Your most realistic chances are in museums:

Germany. A Ju 52/3m is shown by the German Museum of Technology in Berlin and the Hugo Junkers Technology Museum in Dessau; the Wernigerode Aviation Museum has taken over the former Ju-Air aircraft HB-HOS. According to the literature, the Deutsches Museum in Munich has an AAC.1. The Technik Museum Speyer owns a Ju 52/3m and a CASA 352, and further CASA-built aircraft stand in the Technik Museum Sinsheim and in the Flugausstellung Hermeskeil.

Switzerland. In the Flieger-Flab-Museum Dübendorf stands a Ju 52 of the former Ju-Air fleet – a must-visit if you spot in the region around Zurich Airport.

Elsewhere in Europe. According to the literature, Ju 52s are also shown by the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum in Bodø and the Museu do Ar in Sintra; an AAC.1 belongs to the collection of the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace in Le Bourget, but according to the literature is in storage there.

How rare your sighting really is by comparison you can judge with Judging the rarity of a sighting. A broader introduction to identifying old types is provided by How to recognize vintage aircraft, and you find dates with historic aircraft via Air shows in Europe and the Hahnweide vintage aircraft fly-in.

Photo tips especially for Tante Ju

The Ju 52 is a rewarding subject: corrugated metal, three engines and an angular silhouette with plenty of character. A few points make the difference.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

Conclusion

The Junkers Ju 52 tells a big piece of aviation history: as the workhorse of the early Lufthansa, as a transport in the war, as a license-built aircraft in France and Spain and finally as a flying monument at Lufthansa and Ju-Air. With the end of passenger flights in 2018 and 2019, an era has come to an end. You can still recognize her in seconds – corrugated metal, three radial engines and a tailwheel exist only once like this.