Junkers Ju 52 A.A.C. 1 Toucan

The A.A.C. 1 Toucan is the French post-war version of the Ju 52/3m, built by the Ateliers Aéronautiques de Colombes (AAC), the name taken by the former Avions Amiot factory at Colombes, on the outskirts of Paris. During the occupation that plant had opened an assembly line for the trimotor on behalf of the Luftwaffe: the first aircraft from it was accepted in June 1942, and according to the German Wikipedia 516 were completed there during the war.

Once the fighting was over, the French state urgently needed to re-equip the Armée de l'Air and, for reasons of economy, chose to make use of the stocks of parts and the experience built up at Colombes and to restart production on its own account. Between late 1944 and 1947/1948 a little over 400 Toucans left the factory — the infobox of the French Wikipedia and the German Wikipedia give 415, while the Spanish article and the general French article speak of “nearly 400” — numbered from 001 onwards. Its three engines were nine-cylinder BMW 132Z radials, built in France by the Société des moteurs Gnome et Rhône.

Compared with the German aircraft, the Toucan had no defensive armament — the dorsal turret was removed — and a strengthened undercarriage and structure, intended to let it operate overseas as well. The fleet was soon joined by just under forty Junkers captured from Germany or taken as spoils by the Allied armies; they too were named Toucan, but their serial numbers started at 1001 and were allocated arbitrarily, with no link to the original manufacturer's number.

At least 216 Toucans flew with the Armée de l'Air. They first served with the transport units in metropolitan France: Groupe de transport III/15 “Maine”, based at Le Bourget and equipped half with Toucans and half with Douglas C-47s, took part alongside the C-47s of groups II/15 “Anjou” and I/15 “Touraine” in bringing French prisoners and deportees home from Germany. GT IV/15 “Poitou” converted to the Toucan in 1946. In 1947 some twenty were deployed during the Malagasy uprising, where they sometimes acted as makeshift bombers carrying a tonne of munitions.

A large number served in the early years of the Indochina War, with groups such as III/64 “Tonkin”, I/64 “Béarn” and II/52 “Franche-Comté”, carrying troops and dropping paratroopers. Slower and less comfortable than the C-47, it made up for it with a shorter take-off run and a fixed undercarriage sturdier than the Dakota's retractable one. During the Algerian War it was flown by the Saharan reconnaissance and support groups GSRA 76 and 78, and in French Equatorial Africa by squadron ESRA 77 at Bangui; ELA 56 “Vaucluse” and EOM 82 also used it. In 1960 several Toucans carried relief supplies to Agadir, Morocco, after the severe earthquake. With the Armée de l'Air the type remained in service until the late sixties.

The Aéronavale used about 51 examples, among others with escadrilles 5.S, 31.S (Orly) and 56.S; the last one was retired in 1962. The Toucan also served French government bodies: the General Secretariat for Civil and Commercial Aviation (SGACC), the Paris Police Prefecture, the National Geographic Institute (IGN), the CATRE acceptance and test centre and ONERA.

In commercial aviation, according to the Spanish Wikipedia, 85 Toucans flew with Air France and other French airlines, at home and in the colonies, among them Société de Transports Aériens (STA) and Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI). The German Wikipedia's list of accidents reflects that network: Air France aircraft were lost at Le Bourget, Toulouse-Montaudran, Pau, in Madagascar, Senegal, Niger, Sierra Leone and Cameroon, where on 1 July 1947 a Toucan crashed near Éséka with none of its 13 occupants surviving; in January 1947 a TAI aircraft flew into the snow-covered slope of Mont Ventoux at a height of 1800 metres, and its crew of three survived.

Outside France, Portugal received fourteen former Armée de l'Air Toucans in November and December 1960 (serials FAP 6311 to 6324), which entered service in February 1961 and flew in the colonial wars in Mozambique and Angola; one was withdrawn in May 1964, and the Portuguese Ju 52s were progressively retired from April 1966 until March 1972. Others, after passing through Air France, ended up with the Yugoslav air force; in 1951 a JAT example crashed near Rijeka.

Several survive: at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, bought from the Armée de l'Air in 1959 for one franc and put back on display on 29 August 2021 after five years of restoration; at the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków, one that flew in Portugal; at the Aeronautical Museum Belgrade, another that served the Armée de l'Air, Air France and the Yugoslav air force; and others at Mönchengladbach, Melun-Villaroche, Le Bourget (in storage) and in Brazil.