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, flying with planes operated by Deutsche Luft Hansa. 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."[6]
The final Avro 504 leaves the production line. The type has been in continuous production for nineteen years.
March 6 – The Couzinet 33 passenger aircraft Biarritz sets out from France to establish the first air link between France and New Caledonia.
April 5 – The Couzinet 33 passenger aircraft Biarritz lands at La Tontouta, New Caledonia, establishing the first air link between France and New Caledonia. It had departed France on March 6.
May 11 – Tragedy strikes as the United States NavydirigibleUSS 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.[8]
May 15 – 1932 Kimberley rescue: German pilot Hans Bertram and mechanic Adolph Klausmann, attempting a global circumnavigation eastabout in a Junkers W 33seaplane, 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 17 – Flying an Avro Avian IV, Beryl Markham completes a flight of approximately 6,000 miles (9,700 km) from Nairobi, Kenya, to Heston Aerodrome outside London, England. She had departed Nairobi on 24 April and flown via Sudan, Egypt, the Mediterranean Sea, and Europe in seven days of actual flying, with several forced landings and stops for engine repairs along the way. Despite having only 127 hours of flight time as a pilot before attempting the trip, she makes the flight without a radio and navigates by sight. She will make the return flight to Kenya a few months later.[9][10]
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.
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.[6]
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.
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 feet).
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.[13]
August 21–27 – The 7,363-kilometer (4,575-mile) Challenge 1932 air race over Europe takes place.
August 24–25 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a nonstop solo flight across North America, flying from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey. The flight also sets a women's endurance record of 19 hours 5 minutes and a women's nonstop distance record of 3,938 kilometers (2,447 miles).
September
September 3 – Jimmy Doolittle sets a new landplane airspeed record of 296 mph (476 km/h) in the Gee Bee R-1
September 5 – Movie stunt pilot Al Wilson is killed in his 1910 pusher biplane after a collision with an autogiro.
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 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.
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.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 89.
^ abDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 186.
^Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Hermes House, 2006, ISBN9781846810008, p. 32.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 50.
^Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 34.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 85.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, pp. 147-148.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, p. 146.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, p. 147.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 50.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 96.
^Polmar, Norma, "Historic Aircraft: The Hall Contribution," Naval History, February 2014, p. 15.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 61
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 125.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, pp. 145-146.
