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Junkers decided to produce this design as a general military version of the G24 under the Junkers designator K30 in 1926. Junkers offered the K30 design to the Russian forces, which ordered a total of 23 K30 aircraft in 1925 and 1926. As the German aviation industry was still not allowed to built military aircraft in 1926, again the production line for these military K30 was set up at A.B. Flygindustri at Limhamn in Sweden. The parts for these K30 aircraft were built at Dessau and then shipped to Limhamn, where A.B. Flygindustri built the K30 under the designator R42. Some of the R42 were already equipped with machine gun towers and bomb mountings. But several of the R42 were also shipped without military equipement to Russia. Those aircraft were military equipped at Fili. In Russia the R42/K30 was designated as JuG-1. Six more R42s were delivered to Chile during 1926 plus three K30 to Spain and two K30 to Yugoslavia until 1931. The Spanish and Yugoslavian aircraft were produced at Dessau. The K30 was equipped with wheels, skies and swimmers. Following the successfull conversion of the G24s to a single engined aircraft F24, Junkers was also thinking about a single engined K30 in 1931. Like the F24, this K30do should be equipped with the Jumo 4 and was similar to the initial G1Sa 24. But none of this single engined K30s were built.

Despite the ban on the construction of military aircraft in 1925, the designers of Junkers Flugzeugwerke A.G. began the development of the G2sB24 project - bomber based on the G24 transport aircraft. For this version Junkers redesigned the center section, the nose, sealed the windows, equipped bomb bays and/or cover suspensions for light bombs with a total weight of up to 1000 kilograms and places for rifle mounts (two open in the bow and aft part, and one closed in the lower part of the fuselage). The plane received K.30 index. The production process for this machine turned out to be too much long. The parts were made in Dessau. Then they were taken to the factory A.B. Flygindustri in Limhamn where the assembly was carried out, already under the designation R42.

The first six R42s were delivered to Chile in during 1926. In addition, three more K30s were produced for Spain and two for Yugoslavia. Spanish and Yugoslav aircraft were already built at the plant in Dessau.

In the USSR, the military version of the G-24 first appeared in 1925, having performed a series of demonstration flights in Moscow. The aircraft was offered to the Soviet Air Force as a heavy bomber. Since TB-1 (ANT-4) is still only passed the first tests, the acquisition of a fairly modern aircraft made it possible to speed up the re-equipment of heavy bomber units. Junkers received an order for 23 vehicles, which were to be built at the plant in Fili (Moscow). However, in fact, only the assembly of aircraft was carried out there from parts delivered from Sweden. The military variant of the G-24 (K-30) was banned, so the delivery of was carried out by a roundabout route - by sea to Murmansk, then by rail to Moscow, where the planes were assembled, armed, and flown around. Then the cars again They were packed in boxes and sent to combat units. Junkers never fulfilled the demand for a concession to establish the production of engines for the G-24 in Moscow. This is served as a formal reason for the termination of the contract and the liquidation of the concession Junkers in general.

We will not touch on all the political and detective aspects of this story. Much more interesting is the further fate of the Junkers.

In 1926, the first "Junkers" YUG-1 (this was the designation of the G-24 in the USSR, German spelling JuG-1) entered the aviation of the Black Sea Fleet. Later, in 1929, the 62nd Naval Reconnaissance Squadron was armed with them Baltic Fleet. Another heavy bomber squadron of the Leningrad Military District was also armed with YUG-1. But by mid-1929, they were all transferred to naval aviation.

The Yug-1 had a bomb load of 700 kg and was armed with three machine gun turrets. Two were located on the top of the fuselage, and the third was in the retractable turret. The increase in the weight of the machine in the military version led to a decrease in flight qualities - The speed dropped to 180 km / h, the range decreased to 800 km.

The term of military service of the YUG-1 was short. In 1930 - 1931, they were all written off in the civil air fleet. In case of write-off, retractable towers, equipment bomb bays and turrets were removed, the rear hatch of the gunner was sealed.

YUG-1 began its service in Polar Aviation in fact even before its creation. 29 In May 1928, the airship Italia crashed and crashed in the Arctic Ocean. on which the international expedition made a flight to the North Pole. Ten people ended up on an ice floe 200 kilometers from Svalbard (80 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and 28 degrees 4 minutes east longitude), six more were carried away on the remains of the airship by a storm wind. On May 30, three victims In a desperate attempt to reach the nearest land, the rest left the camp, We remained waiting for rescuers at the wreckage. The ice floe drifted and accurately determined The position of the camp was impossible.

Several expeditions were organized to rescue those in distress, led by famous polar explorers and explorers: the Italian expedition on board the Città di Milano; the Norwegian expedition led by Lützow-Holm, which provided flights for the pilot Rieser-Larsen; the Portuguese expedition on the ship "Braganza"; expedition of the famous pilot Umberto Maddalena on the Savoy S-55 seaplane and Dornier-Val flying boats. Roald Amundsen flew to the aid of the victims of distress on the seaplane "Latam-47", provided by by the French government. Swedish Geographical Society on donations from private individuals were rented by a Junkers G-24 passenger aircraft, which flew on the Stockholm - Helsinki line. The aircraft had the personal name "Uppland". It was The first Junkers to participate in a rescue expedition.

In the harshest conditions of the Arctic, the Latham-47 went missing. Later, fishermen fished out at sea his wing floats and one of the fuel tanks - Roald Amundsen died saving his friend. Earlier, in 1926, Amundsen, together with Nobile, made the first transpolar flight in history on the airship "Norge".

On June 12, the Soviet Committee for Assistance to Nobile was organized under the chairmanship of Unshlichta. In three days, the most powerful icebreaker in the world at that time, the Krasin, was reactivated, all the necessary supplies were loaded, and an air group was taken on board. June 18 The Krasin left the port of Leningrad. "Only madmen can gather like this Or the Bolsheviks!" the newspapers wrote. On board the Krasin was a Junkers aircraft Yug-1 and its crew: pilot Boris Chukhnovsky, co-pilot Georgy ("Johnny", as he was called by his colleagues) Straube, letnab (navigator-ralist) Anatoly Alekseev, flight mechanics Alexander Shelagin and Vladimir Fedotov. The aircraft was received from the warehouse Baltic Fleet one day before the departure of the icebreaker. "Red Bear" - so called YUG-1 - assembled already at sea.

Only on June 22, for the first time, a plane appeared over the camp of the victims of distress. Umberto Maddalena on the S-55, guided by the constantly disappearing bearings of the weak radio station, managed to find the camp and drop it over the "red tent" food and batteries for a walkie-talkie. However, in the Arctic, "all cats are gray" - that Maddalen's success was not possible for pilots Nielsen and Karlsson on the Upland. Their The sortie on June 19 was unsuccessful. On June 23, Lieutenant Lundborg single-engine reconnaissance aircraft "Fokker" managed to land on an ice floe and take it out of it with difficulty wounded Nobile. However, on the second attempt, Lundborg's plane skipped on landing.

On July 4, due to extremely difficult ice conditions, the head of the expedition "Krasin" Professor Samoilovich decided to put the Yug-1 on a ski chassis and try to take the crashed out by air. Chukhnovsky was supposed to to reconnoitre the ice and find a way for the Krasin, or to find an ice floe and try to sit at the "red tent". On July 11, Chukhnovsky in his first flight discovered the group that had left the camp on May 30 (the so-called Malmgren group). Due to fog, YUG-1 made an emergency landing and broke the landing gear. Radio Alekseeva was brief: "... We consider it necessary to urgently go to save "Krasin" Malmgren..."

The next day, "Krasin" removed from the ice the two surviving members of the group - Mariano and Zappi. Professor Malmgren had died of exhaustion a month earlier. In hellish conditions, they passed through hummocks against ice drift of no more than 100 kilometers. Taking advantage of the improvement in ice conditions, "Krasin" was able to break through to the camp area victims of distress. Only by means of constant radio communication with the coordinating rescue center on the "Città di Milano" "Krasin" did not pass by, but, anyway, or Otherwise, on the evening of July 12, all the inhabitants of the camp were taken on board the Soviet icebreaker.

At this time, the small Portuguese expedition vessel "Braganza" was going to assistance to Chukhnovsky's crew. As a last resort, it was decided to abandon the plane, but to save his crew. However, already on July 16, "Krasin" made its way to the place of forced landing and took the aircraft and its crew on board.

"Krasin" went to Stavanger for repairs - she lost both side propellers, and Chukhnovsky's crew repaired the plane in a tent camp near the coal mines New Ålesund. Then, until the end of September 1928, the search for the group, carried away on the remains of the airship. Using the data of aerial ice reconnaissance, "Krasin" set a kind of record, reaching 81 degrees 41 minutes north latitude in active swimming. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find traces of the missing.

The dramatic events of the summer and autumn of 1928 are reflected in dozens of books, written by eyewitnesses and later researchers. In the 60s, the film studios Mosfilm made a feature film "The Red Tent", dedicated to this event.

Subsequently, Umberto Nobile worked for a long time in the USSR in the system of the Ministry of Aviation Industry, In particular, he dealt with the problems of building airships.

In the early 30s, with the appearance in Aeroflot of aircraft with sufficient range, it became possible to carry out regular air transportation in regions of Siberia and the Far East. In 1932, after the completion of the survey V.S. Molokov made the first flight on YUG-1 on Yenisei Airlines. The work was supervised by B.G. Chukhnovsky. As a rule, in the summer, Yug-1 was put on floats, and in winter they were operated on skis. Perhaps only Yug-1 and Sha-2 had such qualities. The air line began in Krasnoyarsk, at hydrodrome on Telyachy Island. By 1934, 3 residential buildings and 2 dormitories for flight crews, a gasoline depot, berths, hangars and a hydraulic descent.

The long range of the YUG-1 was especially valuable when flying on the Far Eastern lines. In In 1929, M.V. Vodopyanov opened a communication on the Khabarovsk - Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky. As on Siberian rivers, in the summer they flew on floats, in winter - on skis. Since 1931, the hydrodrome has been located at the mouth of the river Aleksandrovka. The adventures that awaited the regular pilots are colorfully described I.P. Mazuruk in the chapter "The Way to the Sky" of his book "Over the Arctic and Antarctic". Mazuruk flew on the YUG-1 with tail number USSR-145.

Reliable and load-lifting, although a bit heavy, the Yug-1 was used for a long time to carry out a special government task - the export of gold from the mines Aldana. The flights were operated by Lena Airlines. It began in Irkutsk. In summer, flights were carried out from the hydrodrome at the confluence of the Ushakovka River with the Angara.

The first three aircraft of the Polar Aviation belonged to the Dornier "Val" type. But the fourth (USSR-H-4) was the Junkers YUG-1. The crew commander was F. Kukanov, the first pilot was G. Straube, the flight mechanics were V. Shadrin and L. Demidov. USSR-N-4 in In 1933, he participated in the geological expedition of S.V. Obruchev to Chukotka.

The float plane was delivered by sea to Anadyr, and then, based at Markovo and Anadyr, Kukanov's crew performed a number of flights to the south, to the mountains, to Koryaksky mountain range and deep into Chukotka to the north. The flights were carried out in conditions of complete lack of equipped landing sites. Aerial photography of the terrain was carried out visually, when the machine is flying horizontally. The USSR-H-4 flew through the main Anadyr Range to the sources of the Amguema River and further to the Arctic coast. Here Kukanov's crew met with a The United States with the crew of Levanevsky (on the USSR-H-8, he took the rescued man to the United States American pilot who crashed over Taimyr). On the way back USSR-H-4 crossed the highest ridge between Cape Severny and the upper reaches of the river Osinovka.

The flights of the USSR-H-4 made it possible to find out the general picture of the location of the mountain ranges Chukotka. It turned out that the Anadyr and Stanovoy ridges are not interconnected, but are separated by a plateau called Anadyr.

The workers of YUG-1 worked a lot and intensively in the USSR. Their strength and reliability have been confirmed by many years of operation not only in Aeroflot. In Lufthansa G-24 flew even during the war, and some specimens in South America survived to of the early 50s. However, their age in the USSR was limited by the absence of suitable engines. Junkers did not establish the production of motors at the concession plant, the domestic M-6 engine (a copy of the 300-horsepower Hispano-Suiza) was discontinued even earlier. If the Germans went for a radical modernization of their G-24s, turning them into single-engine aircraft with BMW-VI and Jumo-4 engines (F-24kay and F-24ko versions), then in the conditions of the USSR such a conversion was considered inappropriate. In In the mid-30s, Aeroflot began to receive an ever-increasing number of decommissioned TB-1 (G-1). Therefore, by 1936, all Yug-1s were decommissioned

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