page_title: Junkers Ju 52
section_title: Postwar use
hierarchical_section_title: Junkers Ju 52 / Operational history / Postwar use
caption_attribution_description: English: Junkers Ju52/3m of British European Airways at Manchester (Ringway) Airport in 1947
context_page_description: The Junkers Ju 52/3m is a transport aircraft that was designed and manufactured by German aviation company Junkers.
  Development of the Ju 52 commenced during 1930, headed by German aeronautical engineer Ernst Zindel. The aircraft's design incorporated a corrugated duralumin metal skin as a strengthening measure, which was very unusual at the time. The Ju 52's maiden flight was performed on 13 October 1930. It was initially designed with a single engine, however, it was produced in quantity as a trimotor. The primary early production model, the Ju 52/3m, was principally operated as a 17-seat airliner or utility transport aircraft by various civil operators during the 1930s. Following the rise of Nazi Germany, thousands of Ju 52s were procured as a staple military transport of the nation. The Ju 52/3mg7e was the principal production model.
  The Ju 52 was in production between 1931 and 1952. In a civilian role, it flew with over 12 airlines, including Swissair and Deutsche Luft Hansa, as both a passenger carrier and a freight hauler.
context_section_description: Various Junkers Ju 52s continued in military and civilian use following World War II. In 1956, the Portuguese Air Force, which was already using the Ju 52s as a transport plane, employed the type as a paratroop drop aircraft for its newly organized elite parachute forces, later known as the Batalhão de Caçadores Páraquedistas. The paratroopers used the Ju 52 in several combat operations in Angola and other Portuguese African colonies before gradually phasing it out of service in the 1960s.
  The Swiss Air Force also operated the Ju 52 from 1939 to 1982, when three aircraft remained in operation, probably the last and longest service in any air force. Museums hoped to obtain the aircraft, but they were not for sale. They are still in flying condition and together with a CASA 352 can be booked for sightseeing tours with Ju-Air.
  During the 1950s, the Ju 52 was also used by the French Air Force during the First Indochina War as a bomber. The use of these Junkers was quite limited.
  The Spanish Air Force operated the Ju 52, nicknamed Pava, until well into the 1970s. Escuadrón 721, flying the Spanish-built versions, was employed in training parachutists from Alcantarilla Air Base near Murcia.
  Some military Ju 52s were converted to civilian use. For example, British European Airways operated 11 ex-Luftwaffe Ju 52/3mg8e machines, taken over by the RAF, between 1946 and retirement in 1947 on intra-U.K. routes before the Douglas DC-3 was introduced to the airline. French airlines such as Societe de Transports Aeriens (STA) and Air France flew Toucans in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
  In the USSR, captured Ju 52s were allocated to the Civil Air Fleet, being found particularly suitable for transporting sulphur from the Karakum Desert. Various Soviet agencies used the Ju 52 through to 1950.
  A Ju 52 and a Douglas DC-3 were the last aircraft to take off from Berlin Tempelhof Airport before all operations ceased there on 30 October 2008.
caption: Ju 52/3m of British European Airways in 1947
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