Junkers 390 flight

[Gotthard Heinrici]

I was reading about the development of the Junkers 390 which supposedly had the capacity to cross the Atlantic and some articles refer to a supposed flight that took place from France and went as far as 20km from New York whereupon it supposedly turned back! Anyone know anything about this???

[Mark Hone]

'Target America' by James P. Duffy which looks at Axis attempts to attack the USA devotes a short chapter to the JU390 'mystery flight' (pp 112-115). Supposedly the first mention of this flight was a (skeptical) report in the 11th November 1955 issue of 'RAF Flying Review'. Apparently it has cropped up at intervals since then, notably a September 1969 article in the Daily Telegraph which quoted a test pilot called Hans Pancherz who claimed to have flown a 390 to Cape Town. He stated that the flight to America, although planned, was never carried out. Duffy's basic conclusion is that there is insufficient hard information available finally to confirm or deny the story. Seemingly a fuller account of this and other supposed Ju290/390 flights is given in 'World War II German Long Distance Flights: Fraud or Record' by Kenneth P. Werrell Aerospace Historian magazine 35/2 Summer 1988.