Junkers W 34

The Junkers W 34 was a German single-engined passenger and transport aircraft, developed in the 1920s from the record-breaking W 33 and taken into service in 1926. The passenger version carried a pilot and five passengers. A W 34 fitted with a Bristol Jupiter VII engine and flown by Willi Neuenhofen reached an altitude record of 12,739 m on 26 May 1929. About 1,000 were built for the civil market and a further 2,024 under licence for the air ministry and the Luftwaffe, which still had hundreds in service in January 1944, mostly in flight schools. The military K 43, nicknamed the Bush Bomber, was used extensively in the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, and the W 34 and K 43 also served in the Colombia-Peru War. The Swedish and Finnish air forces flew it too, and one Swedish example survives in civilian colours as SE-BYA. Further development led to the Ju 46, a catapult-launched naval seaplane.