The Giant Airliner With Cabins In Its Wings | Junkers G38 [Aircraft Overview #19]

The Junkers G38 is one of my favourite commercial aircraft from the interwar period - probably because I love blended wing designs. Developed during the late 1920s, it would become the largest landplane in the world when it first took off in 1929. Despite only two being built in Germany, they would quickly make a name for themselves with Lufthansa as luxurious air liners.

Its main feature was the massive wing, which had a span of 44 meters and was almost 2 meters thick. This allowed it to hold a pair of passenger cabins, 'engine rooms' for mechanics to service the engine, and a large fuel capacity - giving it excellent range and endurance. Unfortunately the aircraft was let down somewhat by its lack of passenger capacity (never exceeding 34), but it was an exciting demonstration of 'big wing' design. The G38 was also built under licence in Japan as the Mitsubishi Ki-20 (or Type 92).

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Producing these videos is a hobby of mine. I have a passion for history, and personally own a large collection of books, journals and other texts, and endeavor to do as much research as possible. However if there are any mistakes, please don't hesitate to reach out and correct anything :)

Sources:

[karlfriedrich]

It's genuinely incredible that just 26 years after the first flight, we were building 21 ton aircraft with 3, 000hp. Science and engineering developments are truly fascinating

[donjones]

I can't get enough of these giant planes from the 1920s. The audacity of these designers is amazing considering they were building during an era when new wire-braced biplanes were still being produced.

[billenloe]

When I first watch “The Wind Rises”, I thought the J-38 must have been another one of Miasaki’s fantasy planes. It is even more amazing to see that it was really all true!

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

It's easy for any man and his dog to dig up old footage and call themselves a YouTube aviation historian, but too many of these channels turn out to be worthless clickbait with poor delivery and subjective, emotive padding and theorycrafting. Your delivery is excellent, your content very well assembled, and you have earned yourself a sub this day, sir.

[thanathanhagalas]

Mein Uropa war dort Tragflächenschlösser. Mein Opa wohnt 500m von der alten Start und Landebahn. Bis heute prägen mich die Geschichten und meine Liebe zu Flugzeugen.

[hanshartfiel]

The airfield near Dessau, where Hugo Junkers developed his planes, is still in existence. There is also a Hugo Junkers Museum.

[thomasdoran]

There is a difficult to pin-point elegance, and 'Art Deco' style, to the aesthetic, geometric, organic lines, of these beautifully designed planes !
What a capture of the 'era'

[olliefoxx]

Germany produced such visionary feats of engineering. Their airships and this beautiful plane seem like a movie set not an actual functioning craft. Their maritime designs were just as nice.

[NameNotAlreadyTaken]

This aircraft is lovingly depicted in the Miyazaki movie The Wind Rises. It's really incredible.

[jakes]

I absolutely love inter-war aviation! Most people just talk about ww1 and ww2, but what happens in between is so fascinating! This is my new favorite channel!

[williamscoggin]

It always amazes me when these engineers and designers come up with such a radical massive new products. This guy had his foot on the pedal at 120% as far as daydreaming new stuff all day long, and then staying up a whole lot of late nights drawing and planning. This is really someone wrapping their head around modern technology back in the day and coming up with something extraordinary!
Got to admire them!!!

[JimHendrickson]

I recall being fascinated by this plane when I first saw it on an episode of Wings many years ago. Details were scant, then I soon forgot about it. This presentation of its rich and detailed history is excellent. This is my favorite period of aviation history, and with so much rapid development, many designs were obsolete even before they took to the air. That this one lasted a good 12 years (even longer in Japan) is remarkable for its era. The combination of a metal monoplane wing and large, wooden propellers gives away its design at the intersection of different periods of aviation technology, and must have been a sight to behold when it landed at a local airfield. It's too bad that there are no surviving examples, but WWII did that to a lot of magnificent planes. It would have been really neat to see one make a trans-Atlantic trip.

[emmedigi]

I remember building a scale model of this as a child and being fascinated by its unique arrangement and design, really unusual for today's standards.

[pistonar]

It's sad that so many interesting, historical, and ground-breaking aircraft didn't make it to today. Great video!!

[martijn]

I gotta love how we've had the totally sane Fokker F VII and Ford Trimotor and these totally insane aircraft in the 1920s.

It's probably an healthy state for an industry to be in. Where there's reliable products while also having some insanely experimental products that work, or not.

[andrewweitzman]

You have to love the sheer crazy-train audacity of these dieselpunk designs from the "teenage years" of aviation development.

[MURDOCK]

Inter war aviation is really festinating. It's a bit like the age of the dinosaurs with some massive and obscure designs

[Gwailo]

This is one of the good reasons the internet exists. A thoughtful and well presented story about an aircraft I imagine most people never knew existed.

[alepaz]

those wing cabins were totally awesome

i wonder about the noise from the engines, but the view...

[viktor]

Thank you! I very much like the style of your short documentations. I'm sure it was a lot of work to find photos, analyze manuals and dig into the history of this truly amazing aircraft! I'd love to see more videos of this quality about airliners from the 20s, 30s, and 40s!