Tried to translate the story of the D-AQUI:
The Ju was built 1936 with s/n 5489 at the factory in Dessau.
Named “Fritz Simon” with marking D-AQUI she started to fly for Lufthansa on 10th of April 1936.
Shortly after that she was sold to Norway because the norwegian airline DNL was in urgent need of spareparts after the loss of a plane.
Fitted with floats and marked LN-DAH she flew at the norwegian cost region.
In April 1940 she was taken by the Wehrmacht, doing her job as troop-carrier. Half a year later she was transferred to the Lufthansa again named “Kurt Wintgens” with her old markings D-AQUI. Until the end of war she flew at the norwegian cost.
After the german capitulation 1945 the plane was given back to the norwegian airline, named “Askeladden” with markings LN-KAF.
During maintenance 1947 substantial corrosion was detected. “Spare part storage” here was another old ex-Lufthansa Ju.
Februar 1948 this Ju 52, which was now pieced together, started to fly again with markings LN-KAF (but with s/n 130714 of the military-fuselage) for the norwegian airline.
1956 she retired and after a holding time of approx. 1 year she was sold to the airline “Transportes Aéros Orientales” in Quito, Ecuador.
With her new markings HC-ABS and named “Amazonas” she flew passengers, goats, cows and other freight into the forest areas of south africa. 1963, after approx. 8000 flight hours, she nearly broke apart.
She was shut down and rotted for six years at the Quito airport.
The american pilot Lester Weaver got notice of this plane, bought it and got her back into the air in the US with markings N130LW (experimental-licence).
In 1975 Mr. Martin Caidin could not resist and bought this plane. He named it “Iron Annie” with markings N52JU and flew it on airshows across the USA.
1975 the plane was overhauled completely and fitted with Pratt & Whitney R1340 “Wasp” – engines.
In October 1984 the then-technical manager of Deutsche Lufthansa, Mr. Reinhardt Abraham, decided to purchase an active flying Ju 52 as a tradition-plane for the 60th anniversary of the Lufthansa on 26th of January 1986.
Martin Caidin agreed and sold the plane to the Lufthansa. On the 28th of December 1984 “Iron Annie” landed after a 16 day long, adventuresome flight from Florida over the US-east coast, Greenland, Iceland and Great Britain at the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel- airport.
The plane managed an ice-cold flight of approx. 8000 kilometers over ice-deserts and the open Ocean more or less safely.
The the restoration – adventure began. Originally the historic condition of the plane had to be reconstructed.
But soon the technicians of the Lufthansa had to stop this project. Too much damage, no longer existing manufacturing engineering and increased safety requirements of the present air traffic required a complete
rebuild of the plane incl. manufacturing of corrugated iron parts.
Several components of the complete system, especially the electrical system, had to be redesigned and installed. The same problem applied to the instrumentation of the cockpit.
Extravagant expenses demanded the extensive work for approval in terms of type sample tests and flight tests, because the Federal Office of Aviation could not revert to existing documentation of approval.
They were getting lost in post war years and therefore the model Junkers Ju 52 did not exist officially in Germany until 1986!
After 16 months of intensive work, the “maiden flight” took place in April 1986.
The plane was named “Berlin-Tempelhof” with it’s historic markings D-AQUI and the official marking D-CDLH.
Until the end of the year 2000 the plane managed 4,918 flying hours in 9,624 flights with 109,124 passengers, since 1936 approx. 14,000 flying hours in 28,000 flights.
Enclosed some pictures of the fantastic performance (pilot Mr. Uwe-Karsten Badow) at the Hahnweide-Airshow September 9th 2007.
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