Germany's favourite Auntie

Leverkusen has many neat things, though no ICE ever stops here. We even have a small airstrip called "Kurtekotten", normally only for small single engined planes and gliders, owned by the "Luftsportclub Bayer Leverkusen e.V.". Soon, the facility will celebrate its 50th birthday, and for that occasion, a very famous visitor arrived today:

The Junkers Ju 52 built from 1932 till 1945, with this specimen having been built in 1939. Germans affectionately know her as "Tante Ju" (Auntie Ju), with her characteristic corrugated iron surface and thundering radial engines, clearly being from a time before WW2. Seeing use as transport, hospital or seaplane, even deploying paratroopers, it became apparent that she was dead slow and vulnerable due to a lack of proper defensive armament, but there was no other plane fit for this role at that time.

As some of the bystanders remarked, these planes were used for the attempted air lift in Stalingrad. One old gentleman remarked that his father-in-law managed to get on board the last plane that was able to depart from Stalingrad. It looked a lot like Swiss Cheese afterwards, and those who got away with their lives fondly remember these sturdy planes for getting them out of hell on earth.


I just think it's a gorgeous old machine.