Wonderful JU 52 about to be grounded .... by LH‘s saving frenzy?
 

Here's the link...

Very sad if it proves to be the case, always admired Lufthansa for their support of the old timers. Tried to get a flight in it out of London City, all seats had sold out...

Rambo C.S. at his best.

First slaughter Lockheed Starliner L-1649A and now the JU 52.

His bonus will again be guaranteed.

I have travelled on D-AQUI, I have seen it many times, on the ground, touching the skin, watched it flying
overhead our house on its way from Oberschleissheim to the mountain region. Was fascinated by the
sound of either the BMW or Pratt & Whitney engines, depending whether the Lufthansa or the JUAir 52
was flying. Yes, I would miss the sound and the sight, but, please, for the sake of safety, lets accept that
these birds need to be grounded now, and displayed in aircraft museums. It is a nuisance, saying that the
LH CEO´s Bonus will be guaranteed. This man is a pilot himself, to my knowledge loves aircraft as much as
we do, but he has a responsibility. For the money of the company, but also for the safety of the aircraft
owned by LH, or flying on the LH flag. . After the shut down of the Super Star Project, and after the JUAir crash
follow up action was to be expected.

HB-HOT had a lot of corrosion and fatigue issues and non-conforming repairs, so Ju-Air have their homework cut out for them and hope to be back this summer. D-AQUI was probably in a better state, so I doubt this was the reason, even if learnings from HB-HOT may have prompted a few additional checks and repairs.

It is true that if there was a crash, it would reflect on LH, but I doubt that this was the reason for their decision.

I can understand why a large brand like LH would wish to distance themselves from perceived risk in operating this kind of aircraft, but to say that they cannot operate and carry passengers safely is simply not correct.

With the correct procedures, maintenance, training and support aircraft like the DC3, JU-52, DH Dragon Rapide etc. can (and I hope will) fly passengers safely for decades to come.

OH

Companies are run by people who drive spreadsheets for a living. It's neigh on impossible to place a value on a historic aircraft doing loss-making sightseeing flights.

I sympathise with the cadre of old hands who kept the aircraft going, as well as the new generation of mechanics and pilots who they taught to fiddle with something that's not run by software and microchips.

Count myself luck I had a chance to fly D-AQUI many, many, moons ago as a 'thank you' from Lufthansa Technik. They'd move the operations from FRA to TXL (or vice-versa, can't recall) and had lost the PW engine manuals in the process. As a young sprog I was sent to the basement of the company I was a trainee at, to see what I could dig out. Found both an original engine- and parts manual, both of which were professionally copied and bound in leatherclad binders, then sent free-of-charge to a very grateful Lufthansa.

They had wasted so much money on the failed Star Liner restoration project before that now the upper floors feel like they can't pump in any more money in historical aircraft that are not as reliable as current airliners. Plus Lufti is set to become more european. Their brand Eurowings will take over more business and Spohr seems to be prefering to take down old brand elements like their 100 years old yellow from the logo. It's transition not tradition.

What is your definition of safe?
What is a Lufthansa customer's definition of safe?
How does the hazards associated with an 80 year old aircraft compare with a modern fleet?
How would the loss of a Lufthansa branded (and operated) JU-52 and its passengers affect customer perception of the brand?
What is the Lufthansa board's definition of safe?
How do the individual members of the main board feel about holding civil (and potentially) criminal liability for the risk level associated with the JU-52 operation?

Overt Hawk, the point is not that aircraft can not be kept in flying condition, this we all know. But you can not replicate air transport of the period. I am a airline historian,
and I was very lucky to have travelled on all the Douglas aircraft ( except DC 5 ) from DC 3 to DC 10 in airline service, this is something you can not bring back. All you can offer, is joy rides. Even D-AQUI is a very modern aircraft, more or less a Airbus type in a old shell. If you are really interested in air travel in the old days, I recommend you read the book " Croydon to Concorde " by Captain RE Gillman. It is worth more than a hundred joy rides. Join him on a flight into Cork, jump seating on a Jupiter Class 52 on a foggy day.

From what I hear from the inside , the Connie fiasco ( to finish it to make it airworthy for EASA would have cost more than what was spent already ) has shaken the tree . Even finished it would have been extremely expensive to fly it. (in 2017 Breitling also ended their sponsorship to the SCFA Connie which remained grounded after that , but hopes to get it back in the air this year ) It is not that much the JUAir accident ( which also shook the tree) but rather the costs and the difficulties in maintaining D-AQUI , causing long periods of being unavailable in 2018.
One has also to remember the accident of their Safir in 2014 . So money yes, but not only. Very sad for all those involved who love historical aircraft.
The DLBS voluntary work now will likely be focused on restoring the FW200 Condor, a magnificent aircraft, but most certainly not for flying anymore.,.

Which was exactly the point I was making!

Your points are mostly well made, certainly those that relate to the branding of LH, passenger expectation and board risk tolerance. If I was on the board of LH I'd probably advise them against operating the aircraft.

As for how the hazards of a well managed historic fleet stack up against a modern fleet - well why don't you ask the pax on the brand new 737X that crashed in Indonesia recently?

I come back to my original point that historic aircraft can be operated well within a risk band that is acceptable to many people and that is easily as safe as a great many modern civil air transport operations.

+1 . Absolutely , and it can be profitable too , just a good example here : HOME

They wanted to certify it for commercial passenger ops and wanted the cockpit to be modified to about C-130J glass cockpit standards, This led the FAA to request proper flight testing and major recertification work. The whole project went out of control including it's cost.
While it feels cruel now I think there was no other option than closing things down except maybe mothballing everything somewhere.

Except that the Ju-52 is owned by a foundation, LHBS, not Lufthansa. And the Safir was owned by a private company, ProFlight, and only slated to go to LHBS. So it is probably not a legal tort risk, just one of publicity.

Lufthansa said it subsidized the Ju 52 flights themselves and there was no perspective to ever get them profitable. This is why they now stop marketing the seats for passenger flights.

I have heard there might be help from non-LH sponsors. It hopefully won't be the end of this bird.

The JuAir crash most likely did not play a role in LH's decision. I would bet it's purely based on economic factors.

Pretty much fits into Germany's overall policy of ridding itself of any defining, characteristic traits and elements, and transitioning to some undefined crowd, which is perceived as being particularly "European" or "Globalist".

It's true there is almost a fashion right now in Germany to question everything existing. Including parts of science (like psychology) and many old habits. The post-unification period is ending and now some new generation fills the ranks. On the other hand many things were done just because there were done that way forever without thinking about other options before.
I'd certainly like to keep the Ju flying. It's even a registered flying monument.

I find it puzzling/irritating/non-credible that

- nobody forced the aircraft on LH, they acquired it themselves in the early Eighties. Its operation was their own idea, and the operating foundation/trust (DLBS) was only founded afterwards,
- if they claim as a reason that a financially viable operation is not possible, then it took them more than 30 years to realize this;
- the statement in the link to NDR seems to convey the impression that LH is trying to rid themselves of any direct association with the aircraft. Nonetheless, (1) it appears in their fleet listing in their onboard-magazine, (2) much of the junk in their "World Shop", such as watches, suitcases, jackets etc., is "Ju 52" labelled/inspired, (3) it carries their logo, (4) it's flown by LH aircrew, and (5) when I flew it in some 10 years ago from Munich Airport, it was with an LH flight number and a LH boarding pass. They've used it thoroughly as a LH billboard!

According to a post in a German forum, the 2018 season was cut short by a cracked engine bearer, and it is currently in a hangar in Munich.

I suspect that the real reasons are

- corporate concern for bad press after the Ju Air accident, and/or
- lack of trust/interest/sympathy/patience with the operator, DLBS, after the massive cost overruns with the Constellation project (there are also statements on various Internet sources of embezzlement and misuse of funds for that project in the USA).

HB-HOT probably got this corrosion while doing a trip to the US and back, at least that is the explanation Ju Air have. The other two have been examined now and found clean according to a comment Ju Air made very recently. The interim report by the Swiss TSB points out that they are not suspecting the corrosion nor what they called irregular repairs to have anything to do with the crash. Local reaction by people who know the inner working of JU Air suggest that the report goes way over the top and simply shows that the investigators have preciously few insight in what it takes to remain a fleet of 80 year old airplanes.

HB-HOY which was stored at Mönchenglattbach is totally free of these issues as it underwent a complete overhaul a few years ago and will be re-activated to replace HB-HOT.

The question whether they will restart operation next spring will depend how much the local authorities will continue their support for this fleet or be scared into submission by their lawyers, fearing retribution. The ressourcefulness of JU Air's leadership should however not be underestimated.

D-AQUI is a very different airplane and has no such issues. However, it was grounded in 2018 due to damage to an engine mount discovered in 2018 during maintenance. It is powered by Pratt and Withney engines.

Currently it appears that most of the previously engaged sponsors are pulling out of such projects, LH just being one. Breitling dropped the Connie and almost all their aviation assetts and it appears they are trying to de-invest themselfs of the aviation image they had (which imho is close to commercial suicide but time will tell). While many folks were saying that the Connie would die if Breitling dropped them, they keep finding new sponsors who keep them going, even though they have massive problems getting it back into the air. I sincerely hope that in Germany there will be enough supporters of D-AQUI to rise money to keep her going. In comparison to the Connie projects e.t.c the JU should be in a much more affordable league financially.

Reply to ATC watcher
Video here of Lufthansa's Lockheed Super Star restoration..lots of money spent

As it falls under the category of "historic aircraft" (at that time "Annex II"), it would have been german LBA, not EASA to deal with it. Just like D-AQUI, which is not under EASA responsibility.
The exact problem was the plan to make it airworthy for "commercial air transport", which is much more complex than having an experimental certification.

Another issue of course was the actual condition of the airframe, which was significantly worse than expected after the first view.

Super Video thank you ! and I heard the actual situation ( as of Sept 2018) the aircraft is far most advanced and was almost ready , pulling the plug after so much efforts is extremely painful for all those that worked on it, especially the volunteers..

@volume : thanks for the EASA correction , although I am not the only one to have this belief ( see above video 23:10) Many here do not understand why they could not let it on N registration and fly it like they do with US old timers , like the B17 and the ford Trimotor of Oshkosh ..who do carry pax around in the same way that D-AQUI was doing..... Also wanting to "electronize" raised costs and complexity. I believe ..

..

Pretty much true, but with the exemption of the infamous 12 years, which apparently labels every German as guilty. Doesn´t work very well with the mostly anti-jewish "new Germans" who flood our streets these days, though.

But btc, I don´t think Spohr and his board do feel anything like people that care about aviation and its heritage. They are dissolving the brand Lufthansa, I guess it won´t mean anything any more in a few years and thus the heritage bird is an unwanted expense. Claims have been made by board members, that they feel underpaid, probably some stock holder with a say told them to get more profitable..

The Super Star was meant to get a new glass cockpit, C-130J-style, in order to cover unrestricted transatlantic commercial passenger ops (with some fancy VIP cabin...).
BUT that would have made some lengthy flight test and recertification necessary the FAA had advised. And this drove cost through the roof. It's said that, already being in the triple digit millions, doubling the cost might not have been enough to bring it back to flying. This project was just crazy to begin with the more get's known today.

Dón´t overestimate those peoples ability to diferetiate... They are just anti-anything-different, no matter whether faith, origin, color of skin, sexual orientation. Of course it is easier to be against the usual subjects their grandfathers were already against...

Depends how this decision was driven. Most probably some LHT experts would have really learned something during this exercise, which may have developed a completely new business of vintage-vip-aircraft restoration.
So if everybody would have been aware of the gigantic workload associated with this project, it would have been fine. As JFK said: We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win...

Just found this. Very sad. I made five flights on D-AQUI in 2014 & 2015 and was due to make a sixth in September 2015, which was cancelled when they grounded it to sort out the cracked stringers.

The issues with the Connie were clearly identified back in 2014. I flew D-AQUI from Mainz to Hamburg and talked with the Lufthansa air crew volunteers handling check in while we were waiting for it to be turned round and refueled. At that point they felt the money had run out and the whole project was going nowhere.

Anyway, I'm still left with great memories of -

One-hour night flight out of Hamburg;

Mainz-Hamburg with an overflight of Wunstorf and what the Captain described as 'orientation turns' over two small towns enroute. In my flying days we called them 'beat ups'. On that trip we flew VFR under a fairly low cloud base through shallow valleys and at one point round a row of wind turbines on a ridge. The most amusing part was being cut up by a Cessna 172 (I've got it on video) as we began to turn finals for Hamburg. He landed ahead of us on the grass left of runway 05, cut across and went down the taxiway;

Leipzig into Siegerland for an airshow. We flew in on Friday. I stayed in a local town and got a lift in next morning with some of the visiting pilots before flying Siegerland to Frankfurt-Egelsbach with an Me108/Nord 2002 flying on our port rear for the final 20 minutes or so;

And finally Cologne-Bremen.

The people involved in the Ju52 operation were 100% dedicated it. The crews took great pride in, and no payment for, their involvement with Tante Ju and it was an honour to fly with them.

If you are travelling along the autobahn approaching an exit but you intend to continue, when you are overtaken by another vehicle which cuts across in front of you and takes the exit = cut-up
Not a pilot but always understood 'beat up' to be a low pass to impress/please ground-based observers
DaveD