Germany To Bring Oldest Aircraft Back Into Service
(CNN) — While flying is still considered a quintessentially modern way to travel, many airlines have now clocked up decades of history. And one is taking its heritage very seriously.
German airline Lufthansa has been busy restoring classic examples of its former fleet for displays and experience flights.
It's just brought back into service the oldest aircraft in its fleet, a Junkers Ju-52, and is set to recommission a Lockheed L-1649A Starliner from 1957.
"It is not unusual to have elderly people, who flew on Ju-52 when they were very young, take their grandchildren on board," explains Wolfgang Weber, a Lufthansa spokesperson.
Really Lufthansa? Does this seem like a good idea? We've got enough problems losing planes that are brand new, so I'm not sure how we're supposed to keep track of some that were invented before radar. Airplanes are just one of those things that I think have really gotten a lot better with age, specifically they crash less. You want to put me on an old time train? Go ahead! You can put me in an old car, and hell, you can even put me on an old boat (that’s not the Titanic II). But sticking me on some rusty old airplane that saw combat in WWII isn’t my idea of a good time. Did you read this part?
Taking care of such an old aircraft represents a challenge for the maintenance crews. Parts and spares are hard to come by and very often have to be manufactured from scratch.
They don’t even have these parts anymore! They have to make them by hand! That’s called spit and glue folks, and from my limited experience it works great with furniture, decently with bicycles, and pretty fucking badly with airplanes. And look, I do understand that it’s nice for the grandparents to hop on these objects of their youth and take a tour of the skies, but hey, leave your grandkids at home. If the elderly want to go out in a ball of fire because some engineer couldn’t hammer and chisel the right size screw, then so be it. But don’t kill off the inheritors of our world because you need to get off on a sentimental reminder of how shitty it was to fly during the 19fuckin40’s.
P.S. The best thing going for this project is that it’s German. If there’s one country I trust to build an airplane by hand, it’s Germany. Thing will probably run smoother than a Delta flight.
