Junkers F 13: The Return of a Legend

Today, we take it for granted that we can fly anywhere in the world, but the modest beginnings of international air travel are not even a century old. When the Junkers F13 was built in 1919, it was the first self-supporting all-metal aircraft in the world. , which enabled it to shatter many records for both altitude and distance flown until 1932. The Junkers F13, introduced in 1919, could seat only four passengers, but this plane was the mother of global commercial flight and was used on five continents. Its designer, visionary inventor and entrepreneur Hugo Junkers, was convinced that commercial aviation was the future. Many of his predictions and estimations have come true and many of his structural principles are still used in airliners today. His revolutionary ideas were made possible by duralumin, a lightweight, high-strength copper-aluminium alloy. Despite these achievements, this pioneering plane has been overshadowed by its famous successor, the JU 52; of the 347 F13s produced, only five survive in museums, and none are airworthy. In 2009, a group of passionate aircraft designers set out to build a replica F13 and get it in the air. With support from RIMOWA, a leading luggage manufacturer, this dream became a reality. This volume tells the tale of the first Junkers F13 and the amazing story of its reconstruction, from the detective-like search for original documents and design drawings to preparing for the first test flights.