1932 in aviation

Events

The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is retired.

James Work founds the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation.

Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth buys 1928 de Havilland DH.60X Moth G-EBDW, which he bases at Old Warden airfield in Bedfordshire, England, where it remains (as of 2012) – the longest continuous base for a single aircraft in aviation history.

The French Army's Aéronautique Militaire retires the last of its Breguet 14 aircraft. The Breguet 14 had been in service since 1917.

January

January 20 - Imperial Airways weekly airmail service is extended through Africa as far as Cape Town.

January 29 - Imperial Japanese Navy seaplanes from the seaplane carrier Notoro attack Nationalist Chinese military positions in Shanghai, China, beginning Japanese air operations in the Shanghai Incident. The operations, which will continue into February, are the first significant military air operations to take place in East Asia.

January 30 - The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Kaga arrives in Chinese territorial waters at the outbreak of the Shanghai Incident. The Japanese Navy's use of aircraft carriers in the Shanghai Incident will be history's first significant combat use of carrier-borne airpower.

February

February 1 - The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Hōshō joins the carrier Kaga in Chinese territorial waters during the Shanghai Incident.

February 5 - The first air-to-air clash of the Shanghai Incident takes place, between five Japanese aircraft from the aircraft carrier Hōshō and nine Nationalist Chinese fighters.

February 14 - Ruth Nichols sets a new altitude record for a diesel-powered aircraft, 6,047 m (19,928 ft) in a modified Lockheed Vega.

February 22 - During the Shanghai Incident, three Imperial Japanese Navy Nakajima A1N2 fighters from the aircraft carrier Kaga score the first air-to-air kill in Japanese history, shooting down a Nationalist Chinese Boeing fighter piloted by an American volunteer.

March

During the German election campaign of March–April 1932, Adolf Hitler becomes the first politician in history to use air travel to make political campaign appearances in several cities and towns possible in a single day. Before the campaign ends in the election of April 10, 1932, Hitler will speak in 46 cities and towns during two one-week-long "Flights Over Germany."

The final Avro 504 leaves the production line. The type has been in continuous production for nineteen years.

March 20 - Luftschiffbau Zeppelin begins regular transatlantic services between Germany and Recife, Brazil, using the dirigible Graf Zeppelin. The service will continue until 1936, averaging one round-trip per month.

March 24–28 - Jim Mollison sets a new speed record between the United Kingdom and Cape Town, taking 4 days 17 hours in a de Havilland Puss Moth

March 25 - Dobrolyot is expanded into a USSR-wide service and has its name changed to Aeroflot

April

The Spanish airline LAPE begins operations.

April 16 – Record-setting aviator Frank Hawks is injured and his Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship Texaco 13 is badly damaged when he crashes on takeoff from a soggy field at Worcester, Massachusetts. He recovers and the airplane is repaired.

April 19–28 – C. W. A. Scott sets a new solo speed record between the United Kingdom and Darwin, Australia, taking 8 days 20 hours in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth

April 27 – Imperial Airways commences a regular passenger service to Cape Town, South Africa.

May

The Egyptian Air Force is formed

May 9 – Captain Albert Hegenberger makes the first completely blind solo flight entirely on instruments, in a Consolidated NY-2.

May 11 – Tragedy strikes as the United States Navy dirigible USS Akron (ZRS-4) attempts to land in front of thousands of spectators at Camp Kearny in San Diego, California, after a 77-hour flight from Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, when Akron suddenly lurches upward, surprising the sailors handling her lines. Four men cling to a line as Akron rises; one falls from a height of 15 feet (4.6 meters) and survives with a broken arm, but two others fall to their deaths from altitudes of between 100 and 200 feet (30 and 61 meters). Dangling 200 feet (61 meters) below Akron, the fourth man, Seaman Apprentice C. M. "Bud" Cowart, is carried out to sea at an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 meters) and finally is reeled aboard Akron after two hours on the rope. The events are captured on film.

May 15 – 1932 Kimberley rescue: German pilot Hans Bertram and mechanic Adolph Klausmann, attempting a global circumnavigation eastabout in a Junkers W 33 seaplane, endure a storm in the Timor Sea, forcing them to land off a remote part of the Kimberley coast of north-western Australia. The stranded men spend almost six weeks severely deprived of food and water and are close to death when rescued by a search party of aborigines on June 22.

May 20–21 – Amelia Earhart, flying a Lockheed Vega, becomes the first woman to make a solo flight across the North Atlantic, flying from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland to Derry in Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.

June

June 7 – Misr Airlines, which later will become EgyptAir, is founded. It will begin flight operations in July 1933.

June 24 – In the Soviet Union, Leningrad's Shosseynaya Airport (the future Pulkovo Airport) opens. Its first flight, an aircraft carrying passengers and mail, arrives late in the afternoon after a two-hour-and-a-half-hour flight from Moscow.

June 29 – A Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk parasite fighter hooks onto the U.S. Navy dirigible USS Akron (ZRS-4) for the first time.

July

In an early use of air travel to make political campaign appearances in several cities and towns possible in a single day, Adolf Hitler makes his third "Flight Over Germany," a 14-day trip by air in which he makes appearances at 50 urban mass meetings. Hitler had pioneered the use of air travel in political campaigns with his first two "Flights Over Germany" during the March–April 1932 German election campaign.

July 16 – During a flight from Santiago, Chile, to Governor Francisco Gabrielli International Airport in Mendoza, Argentina, the Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra) Ford 5-AT-C Trimotor San José (registration NC403H) crashes on Chile's Cerro El Plomo in the Andes Mountains during a severe snowstorm, killing all nine people on board. Buried in ice and snow, its wreckage will remain undiscovered until March 1934.

July 21 - Wolfgang von Gronau sets out to make a round-the-world trip in a Dornier Wal. One hundred and eleven days later, it will be the first such trip made in a flying boat.

July 23 - Aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont hangs himself.

August

August 14 — Alexei M. Cheremukhin, co-designer (with Boris Yuriev) of the Soviet TsAGI 1-EA pioneering single lift rotor helicopter, takes the 1-EA to an unofficial record altitude for helicopters of the era, of 605 meters (1,985 ft).

August 14–28 - The third International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1932 takes place in Berlin. The Polish crew of Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura win it in the RWD-6 plane.

August 14–23 – Frances Mersalis and Louise Thaden set a women's flight endurance record of 8 days 4 hours.

August 18 - Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns set a new world altitude record for human fight, rising in a balloon to an altitude of 16,201 meters (53,153 feet).

August 18–19 - Jim Mollison makes the first solo east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic, flying his de Havilland Puss Moth G-ABXY The Heart's Content from near Dublin to New Brunswick.

August 21–27 - The 7,363-kilometer (4,572-mile) Challenge 1932 air race over Europe takes place.

August 25 - Amelia Earhart makes the first transcontinental flight across the United States by a woman. She flies a Lockheed Vega.

September

September 3 - Jimmy Doolittle sets a new landplane airspeed record of 296 mph (476 km/h) in the Gee Bee R-1

September 7 - Thomas Settle and Winfield Bushnell set a new balloon distance record of 1,550 km (960 mi) between Basle, Switzerland and Vilna, Poland.

September 11 - The Challenge 1932 winners, Polish pilots Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura, die in an air crash.

September 16 - Cyril Uwins sets a new heavier-than-air altitude record of 43,976 ft (13,404 m) in a Vickers Vespa.

September 20 – Transcontinental and Western Air signs a contract with Douglas Aircraft for the development of the Douglas Commercial Model 1, or Douglas DC-1. A revolutionary all-metal twin-engine airliner, the DC-1 soon will give rise to the Douglas DC-2 and the legendary Douglas DC-3.

September 25 - Lewis Yancey sets an autogyro altitude record of 21,500 ft (6,553 m) in a Pitcairn PCA-2

October

October 7 – First flight of the Stipa-Caproni, a prototype aircraft employing Luigi Stipa's "intubed propeller" concept, a forerunner of jet propulsion and the ducted fan for aircraft.

October 8 – The Indian Air Force is founded as an auxiliary air force of the Indian Empire.

October 15 – Tata Sons opens an airmail route between Karachi and Madras, the first regular air service within India and origin of Air India.

October 18 – As French aviator Jean Marmoz takes off from Istres, France, in the Bernard 81 GR to attempt to set a new unrefueled nonstop closed-circuit world distance record, he notices slackness and vibration in the ailerons and large oscillations of the wings. He dumps fuel and aborts the flight.

November

November 10 – British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin states in a speech that "The bomber will always get through."

November 14–18 – Amy Johnson breaks the United Kingdom-to-Cape Town speed record, shaving 11 hours off Mollison's record set in March. She flies a de Havilland Puss Moth.

November 19 – A national monument to the Wright Brothers is unveiled in the United States at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

December

December 1 – Pan American World Airways announces plans to offer service to Hawaii.

December 22 – During the Chaco War, three Bolivian Air Corps aircraft – two CW-14 Ospreys and a P-6 Hawk – make three bombing and strafing passes against the Paraguayan Navy gunboat ARP Tacuary while she is at anchor in the Paraguay River at Bahía Negra, Paraguay; they drop 15 bombs, 11 of which straddle Tacuary. Tacuary hits one of the CW-14s with a 37-millimeter shell, and CW-14 crashes shortly afterwards in Brazil.

December 24 – The two Bolivian Air Corps aircraft – a CW-14 Osprey and a P-6 Hawk – that survived the 22 December airstrike against the Paraguayan Navy gunboat ARP Tacuary at Bahía Negra return to attack her there again. This time Tacuary takes evasive action. None of the bombs the two aircraft drop hit Tacuary, but their strafing runs against her wound several of her crewmen. The 22 and 24 December attacks against Tacuary have combined to leave 29 splinter holes and 45 bullet holes in her hull.

First flights

Arado Ar 66

Bellanca XSE

Fairchild 24

Farman F.211

Focke-Wulf A 43

Focke-Wulf Fw 43

Mitsubishi Ki-20

Piaggio P.10

Late summer – Focke-Wulf Fw 44

January

January 29 - De Havilland Fox Moth

February

Aichi AB-3

February 24 – Latécoère 500

March

Junkers Ju 46

March 7 – Junkers Ju 52/3m

March 20 – Boeing P-26 Peashooter

March 25 – Curtiss XF11C-2, prototype of the Curtiss F11C Goshawk, the last Curtiss fighter to go into production for the United States Navy

April

Curtiss XP-23 Hawk, last biplane built for the United States Army Air Corps

May

Aichi AB-4

May 7 - Dornier Do 11

May 22 – General Aviation GA-43

May 26 – Farman F.220, prototype of the Farman F.221, Farman F.222, Farman F.223, and SNCAC NC.223

June

Potez 430, prototype of the Potez 43 family.

June 3 - RWD-6

June 6 - Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta

June 18 - Dewoitine D.500

June 23 - Dornier Do 12

June 25 - Farman F.1000

July

Curtiss XP-934, later purchased by the United States Army Air Corps as the Curtiss XP-31 Swift, the first monoplane design by Curtiss

July 8 - Supermarine Scapa

August

Farman F.1010

Fieseler F 4

Mitsubishi Ki-1

August 13 - Gee Bee R-1

September

Albatros L102

September 30 - Blackburn Baffin

October

October 7 – Stipa-Caproni

October 19 – Mitsubishi 3MT5

November

November 4 – Beech Staggerwing

November 8 – Junkers Ju 60

November 19 – ANF Les Mureau 170C.1

November 24 – De Havilland Dragon

December

Consolidated Y1P-25

December 1 - Heinkel He 70

December 21 - Vickers Vincent

Entered service

Hall PH-1 with United States Navy Patrol Squadron 8 (VP-8)

Tupolev TB-3 with the Soviet Air Force

February

De Havilland Tiger Moth with RAF Central Flying School.

March

March 1 – Berliner-Joyce P-16 (later PB-1) with United States Army Air Corps

April

Junkers Ju 46 with Deutsche Luft Hansa

September

Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk aboard USS Akron (ZRS-4)

December

Focke-Wulf Fw 47 with German meteorological stations

PZL P.7a in the Polish Air Force

Retirements

Breguet 14 by the French Army's Aéronautique Militaire.