On this day in aviation history, January 30, 1933, the Curtiss T-32 Condor II airliner made its first flight. This airliner of the 1930s was among the last of the biplane airliners but would play a key role in the development of American commercial aviation.
The design of the T-32 Condor II was derived from two previous aircraft built by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company: the Curtiss B-2 Condor biplane bomber built for the US Army Air Corps and an airliner based on the design of the B-2 Condor, the Curtiss Model 53 Condor. It was evident, however, that despite the economic hardships of the Great Depression, which had forced the company to close its factory in St. Louis, Missouri, and the death of its founder, pioneer aviator Glenn H. Curtiss in 1930, the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, having merged with Wright Aeronautical to form Curtiss-Wright, had to remain competitive in the burgeoning airline industry, which was dominated by trimotors built by Ford and Fokker, while designs for all-metal airliners, such as the Boeing Model 247, were already in development.
In order to quickly introduce such an airliner that could compete against the other airliners of the time, Curtiss designer George A. Page, Jr. developed a design for an airliner that was to have a comfortable interior, two air-cooled radial engines in place of the water-cooled Curtiss Conqueror V12 engines on the B-2 and the Model 53s, and retractable landing gear. This was to become the Curtiss T-32 Condor II and would be developed at the re-opened St. Louis plant. On January 30, 1933, the T-32 Condor II prototype, NX12353, s/n 21, made its first flight. After receiving type certification on March 18, 1933, the first Condors entered commercial service.
The first customers of the Curtiss T-32 Condor II were American Airways (later American Airlines) and Eastern Air Transport (later Eastern Airlines). They were a common sight at state airports during the mid-1930s and featured heavily in advertisements from the companies and in newsreels that exalted the progress of air travel to movie-going audiences.
In addition to transporting largely wealthy passengers in plush seats, the Condors flown by American Airlines could also be used on overnight flights as “sleeper transports”, where bunks could be folded down to provide comfort to passengers trying to fall asleep during their flight. In those days, though, aviation advanced rapidly, and soon, all-metal cantilever monoplanes such as the Boeing Model 247 and the Douglas DC-2 would be introduced and could fly faster than the wood and fabric Condor, but the sleeper transport Condors remained in service until the adoption of the Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST), which became the legendary DC-3 transport.
One of the aircraft originally intended for American Airlines, NR12384, was selected on the factory floor for use in Commander (later Rear Admiral) Richard E. Byrd’s second expedition to Antarctica, where the aircraft, modified with fixed undercarriage that could swap floats for skis, was transported by aboard the steamship Jacob Ruppert to Byrd’s outpost known as Little America used to survey the icy plains and mountains of the continent from 1933 to 1935, but was later scrapped after its return to the US.
Additionally, the T-32 Condor could see limited service in both the US Army Air Corps and the US Marine Corps. The Army Condor transports were designated YC-30s (serial numbers 33-320 and 33-321), while the Marines Condors were identified as R4C-1s (Bureau Numbers 9584 and 9585). Both branches used their Condors primarily as VIP transports, and while the Air Corps would scrap both of their YC-30s in the 1930s, the two Marine R4C-1s were placed aside for another Antarctic expedition taken by Byrd, this time through the U.S. Antarctic Service from 1939 to 1941. Unlike the previous Condor brought to Antarctica, the former R4C-1s never returned home. BuNo 9584 was abandoned following an engine failure on January 3, 1941, while BuNo 9585 was abandoned on Watkins Island by March 1941, as it was felt to be too costly to ship the obsolete aircraft back to the States.
The Condor was also flown aboard in both war and peace. Four aircraft that had originally flown for Eastern Air Transport were later acquired by the British firm International Air Freight, based at London’s Croydon Aerodrome, before they were impressed into service with the RAF, but held in storage until they were scrapped in November 1939. A single example was flown for Swissair as CH-170 but was later lost when it broke up in midair during a thunderstorm near Tuttlingen, Germany on July 27, 1934, killing all 12 occupants, including Nelly Diener, Europe’s first female flight attendant.
In China, the first BT-32 bomber variant was shipped from the United States and demonstrated by American pilot Frank Hawks. Though it was flown by the Chinese Nationalist Air Force, it was primarily used as a transport. Meanwhile, six Condors originally shipped to Veracruz, Mexico to be shipped to fight in the Spanish Civil War but held back and shipped back to the USA, were converted into freighters at Grand Central Airport, Glendale, California and joined the inventory of China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), which had Pan American Airways as its biggest shareholder. These were flown primarily as transports during the Second-Sino Japanese War until five of the six CNAC Condors were destroyed during the Japanese initial attack on Hong Kong over December 8, 1941, while the sixth example was later captured by the Japanese and was likely scrapped by them at a later point in the war.
In Latin America, the Curtiss T-32 Condor II would see its longest service. The Colombian Air Force used three BT-32 bombers fitted with floats to land on rivers during the Colombia-Peru War (1932-1933), but these were used primarily as cargo transports. The Argentine Navy would fly three examples as transports until 1946, and other Condors flew in Latin American countries such as Chile, Peru, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico, with the last intact aircraft being recorded in Mexico as recently as 1950, when the last of them were scrapped.
Today, there are no intact survivors of the Curtiss T-32 Condor II. However, it remains a popular subject for many aviation artists that focus on 1930s American civil aviation, and there is interest in even building an airworthy reproduction of a Curtiss Condor to once again grace the skies. While such a goal is an ambitious one, if successful it would allow modern-day aviation enthusiasts to relive the days when the Curtiss Condor reigned as the last of the American biplane airliners.
Today in Aviation History is a series highlighting the achievements, innovations, and milestones that have shaped the skies. All the previous anniversaries are available HERE
