The Junkers Ju 160 was a German single-engine, low-wing six-seat passenger transport aircraft developed from the Ju 60 and targeted at the same fast airliner market as the

Heinkel He 70 The Heinkel He 70 ''Blitz'' ("lightning") was a German mail plane and fast passenger monoplane aircraft of the 1930s designed by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, which was later used as a bomber and for aerial reconnaissance. It had a brief commercial ca ...

and the

Lockheed Model 9 Orion The Lockheed Model 9 Orion is a single-engined passenger aircraft built in 1931 for commercial airlines. It was the first airliner to have retractable landing gear and was faster than any military aircraft of that time. Designed by Richard A. von ...

. The

Deutsche Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

fleet of 21 aircraft began operations in 1935 and continued until the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Design and development

The earlier Ju 60 from which the Ju 160 was developed was not fast enough to compete with the Heinkel He 70 and only about three were used by Lufthansa in the period 1933-6. The Ju 160 was cleaned up aerodynamicallyTurner, P. StJ. & Nowarra, N. ''Junkers: an aircraft album'' (1971). New York: Arco Publishing Co, Inc. and had a more powerful engine, that combination making it about 72 km/h (45 mph) faster. Like the Ju 60 and in the Junkers' tradition, the Ju 160 was a low-wing

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

design, the wings being built around twin

duralumin Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of '' Dürener'' and ''aluminium''. Its use as a tra ...

spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

s and covered in sheet duralumin. For the first time, though, a Junkers aircraft used entirely smooth skinning; the Ju 60 had a smooth-skinned

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

but the traditional corrugated flying surfaces. The improved performance of the Ju 160 was in part due to this change of skinning. The wing planform was also revised to have taper only on the

leading edge The leading edge of an airfoil surface such as a wing is its foremost edge and is therefore the part which first meets the oncoming air.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 305. Aviation Supplies & Academics, ...

. The

trailing edge The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...

carried the usual Junkers "double wing", a full-width adjustable

flap Flap may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Flap'' (film), a 1970 American film * Flap, a boss character in the arcade game ''Gaiapolis'' * Flap, a minor character in the film '' Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland'' Biology and he ...

cum

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

arrangement. Other aerodynamic improvements included a

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

enclosure better faired into the fuselage and a seriously revised

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

which now retracted inwards into the underside of the wing where the wheels were completely enclosed. The Ju 60 undercarriage left the wheels partially protruding in

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

fashion on retraction. Finally, the power was increased by 10% with a 490 kW (660 hp)

BMW 132 The BMW 132 was a nine-cylinder radial aircraft engine produced by BMW starting in 1933. Design and development BMW took over a license for manufacturing air-cooled radial engines from Pratt & Whitney on 3 January 1928. The nine-cylinder model ...

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

. Seating was for six passengers in two forward-facing and one rear-facing pairs. The crew, pilot and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

operator sat in tandem in an enclosed cockpit with rudder pedals, folding control column and seat for a second pilot to starboard. The first

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

Ju 160 V1, ''D-UNOR'', was taken from the Ju 60 construction line and first flew in January 1934. Lufthansa used it in trials and a number of changes were made to the final prototype (V3), including a wider chord, less deep

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

and a faired tailwheel plus minor door modifications. The first civil production series were designated Ju 160 A-0. The second prototype V2 was for a military version.

Operational history

Including prototypes, 47 Ju 160s were produced. Lufthansa were the main commercial operator, receiving 21 production aircraft. They were running on 13 domestic routes in 1935 alone and stayed in service for example on the fast route between Berlin and Vienna until 1941. One of the 21 was initially operated by the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurasia; this aircraft, however, crashed in Shanghai and was taken back to Germany and to Lufthansa after repairs. The first 11 Lufthansa machines were Ju 160 A-0s registered in 1935, followed by 10 D-0s in 1936. The D-0 version had larger cockpit windows and other crew comfort enhancements. Weser Flugbau used an ex-Lufthansa aircraft. Two machines appeared on the Manchurian civil register, one of then having earlier been registered in Germany, the other sold direct. The German Research Institute for Aviation ('' Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt'' e.V ) operated four Ju 160s. Five others operated at the Flight Research Centre (E-Stelle) at

Travemünde Travemünde () is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Bay of Lübeck, Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, an ...

. The remaining aircraft were mostly military versions. Most of the surviving civilian Ju 160s in Germany were eventually impressed in ''

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

'' service. The Manchurian aircraft appear to have ended up in Japan.

Operators

; *

*''

'' ; *

Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service The was the Naval aviation, air arm of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). The organization was responsible for the operation of naval aircraft and the conduct of aerial warfare in the Pacific War. The Japanese military acquired their first air ...

as the "LXJ"

Specifications (Ju 160)

References

Bibliography