This is a list of aviation-related events from 1932:

Events

• The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is retired.
• James Work founds the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation.^[1]
• Richard 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.^[2]
• The French Armys A ronautique Militaire retires the last of its Breguet 14 aircraft. The Breguet 14 had been in service since 1917.^[3]

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 Navys use of aircraft carriers in the Shanghai Incident will be historys first significant combat use of carrier-borne airpower.^[4]

February

• February 1 - The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier H sh 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 H sh and nine Nationalist Chinese fighters.^[5]
• 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

• 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.^[6]
• 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

• 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 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.^[7] The events are captured on film.
• 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.^[8]

June

• June 29 – A Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk parasite fighter hooks onto the U.S. Navy dirigible for the first time.

July

• 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 - an aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont hangs himself

August

• August 14-28 - the third International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1932 in Berlin, won by the Polish crew Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura on the RWD-6 plane.
• August 14-23 Frances Mersalis and Louise Thaden set a women's endurance record of 8 days 4 hours.
• August 18 - Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns set a new balloon altitude record of 16,201 m (53,153 ft).
• August 18-19 - Jim Mollison makes the first solo East-to-West crossing of the Atlantic, flying a de Havilland Puss Moth from Dublin to New Brunswick
• August 21 27 - 7,363 km race over Europe of the Challenge 1932 contest.
• August 25 - Amelia Earhart makes the first transcontinental flight across the US 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 between Basle, Switzerland and Vilna, Poland.
• September 11 - Polish Challenge 1932 winners, Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura died in an aircrash.
• September 16 - Cyril Uwins sets a new heavier-than-air altitude record of 43,976 ft (13,404 m) in a Vickers Vespa.
• 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 Stipas "intubed propeller" concept, a forerunner of jet propulsion.
• October 15 - Tata Sons opens an airmail route between Karachi and Madras, the first regular air service within India.

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 UK-Cape Town speed record, shaving 11 hours off Mollison's record in March. She flies a de Havilland Puss Moth.
• November 19 - a national monument to the Wright Brothers is unveiled at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

December

• December 1 – Pan American World Airways announces plans to offer service to Hawaii.^[9]

First flights

• Arado Ar 66

January

• January 29 - De Havilland Fox Moth

February

• Aichi AB-3

March

• March 20 – Boeing P-26 Peashooter^[10]
• March 25 – Curtiss XF11C-2, prototype of the Curtiss F11C Goshawk, the last Curtiss fighter to go into production for the United States Navy^[11]

April

• Curtiss XP-23 Hawk, last biplane built for the United States Army Air Corps^[12]

May

• Aichi AB-4
• May 7 - Dornier Do 11

June

• June 3 - RWD-6
• June 6 - Armstrong Whitworth Atalanta
• June 18 - Dewoitine D.500
• June 25 - Farman 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^[13]
• July 8 - Supermarine Scapa

August

• Mitsubishi Ki-1
• August 13 - Gee Bee R-1

September

• September 30 - Blackburn Baffin

October

• October 7 – Stipa-Caproni
• October 19 – Mitsubishi 3MT5

November

• November 4 – Beech Staggerwing
• November 19 – ANF Les Mureau 170C.1^[14]
• November 24 – De Havilland Dragon

December

• Consolidated Y1P-25^[15]
• December 1 - Heinkel He 70
• December 21 - Vickers Vincent

Entered service

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^[16][17]

September

• Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk aboard ^[18]

December

• PZL P.7a in the Polish Air Force

Retirements

• Breguet 14 by the French Armys A ronautique Militaire.^[19]

References

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