1936-1939

The Ju-86 was, of course, developed primarily as a bomber. But in the climate of the 1930s, it was best for the Luftwaffe to have the pretense of the aircraft being a civil transport. This was basically an open secret as anyone familiar with aircraft design could see that these were not really what they were purported to be. Nonetheless, the Ju-86 was developed as a transport and as German airliners go, it was relatively successful, though not to the same degree as the company's Ju-52. One of the more interesting developments was the use of diesel engines as the main power source. These engines put out a respectable amount of power, but were somewhat unreliable, and eventually the Ju-86 switched over to air cooled reciprocating engines. These diesel powered airliners were operated by both Lufthansa and by Swissair.
Swissair ordered one Ju-86 (HB-IXI), which crashlanded within the first months of operation and was afterwards repaired by Junkers. The airline replaced it a couple of months later with another Ju-86 (HB-IXE) which was lateron modified to the Z1 standard and given a new Registration (HB-IXA). This plane also crashed due to an engine fire some months later, killing the crew. The only Junkers-type for swissair was hence a limited success for the airline...
Swissair also used the Ju-86 to operate the night mail service between Zurich and Frankfurt over a mountainous route not requiring a machine as big as the DC-2.

HB-IXI	Junkers Ju 86 B-0 # J860008	07.05.1936 12.08.1936	delivered 01.04.1936, crashlanded 12.08.1936 near Wixhausen (D) and repaired at Junkers.
HB-IXE / HB-IXA	Junkers Ju 86 B-1 / Z11 # J860951	16.03.1937 20.07.1939	HB-IXE, delivered in March 1937, changed Registration to HB-IXA in 1937 converted to Z11 standard with BMW132 crashed 20.07.1939 at Constance due to engine fire.
	HB-IXA (notice different engine! no longer Diesel) :

nazi german	neutralised german	south african	model	model

• A model of the plane
• complete history of the Ju-86 (german)
• military versions
• A couple of facts on the swissair Ju-86
• production-list of the Ju-86

 Please make sure you read the disclaimer regarding copyrights etc.