The Junkers Ju 90 airliner and transport series descended directly from the Junkers Ju 89, a contender in the Ural bomber programme aimed at producing a long-range strategic bomber. This concept was abandoned by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM, Reich Aviation Ministry) in April 1937 in favour of smaller, faster bombers. Design was headed by Ernst Zindel.[1] Development was headed by Professor Herbert Wagner.[2]Civil development[edit]Deutsche Luft Hansa put a request for a long-distance commercial aircraft as early as 1933. When the Ju 89 program was abandoned, the third prototype was partially completed and at the request of Luft Hansa, it was rebuilt as an airliner, retaining the wings and tail of the original design, but incorporating a new, wider, passenger-carrying fuselage. The new design was designated the Ju 90.[3][4][5]The Junkers Ju 90[3][6][7] was a four-engine all-metal, low-wing aircraft fitted with twin end-plate vertical stabilizers. The wings were built around five tubular girder spars covered with a smooth stressed skin. The leading edge was quite markedly swept, the trailing edge almost straight. The Junkers "double wing", a full-span movable flap/aileron combination, was fitted. The tail units on the prototypes used the traditional Junkers corrugated skin, the only part of the aircraft to do so, abandoning the exposed corrugated skinning on later Ju 90 production models for the Luftwaffe. The fins and rudders, the latter with prominent horn balances assemblies, were placed at the end of the tailplane; this latter carried the elevators separated by a gap, forming another double wing. These components were as used in the Ju 89.Junkers Ju 90 under construction at Junkers-Werke Dessau, 1938The new fuselage was of oval cross-section, covered by stressed smooth duralumin skin. On the first four Ju 90As, five pairs of rectangular windows were on each side, each double pair lighting a divided-off section of the cabin containing eight seats in facing pa