How long did the Ju 52 fly in the Swiss Air Force?

Switzerland brought the Ju 52 into its Air Force in 1939 and kept it in service until 1982. When it was retired, three aircraft were still active, and its Swiss career is considered probably the longest and last of the type in any air force. These are aircraft of the Ju 52/3mg4e version, one of the trimotor's transport variants, with military registrations such as A-701 and A-703.

When they were decommissioned, several museums wanted to acquire them, but the aircraft were not put up for sale. They remained airworthy and, together with a CASA 352, the Ju 52 built in Spain, went on to offer sightseeing flights run by the Ju-Air association, based in Dübendorf, near Zurich. The A-701 and A-703 are today listed as aircraft under restoration to fly again.

The Ju 52 was born in the 1930s as a 17-seat commercial airliner and became the Luftwaffe's basic transport in World War II. Many countries used it after the war, including Portugal, which used it to drop paratroopers in Angola until the 1960s, and Spain, which kept it well into the 1970s. Switzerland went further than all of them. Its link to the type continues: in April 2022, 90 years after the first flight of the Ju 52/3m, the Swiss company Junkers Flugzeugwerke AG announced a successor, the Ju 52 New Generation. Postwar manufacturing in France, as the AAC.1 Toucan by Avions Amiot, and in Spain, as the CASA 352, extended the type's life, and Short Brothers rebuilt some captured aircraft in Northern Ireland for civilian service.