Curtiss Condor
The Curtiss Condor of this record is the T-32 Condor II of 1933, a two-bay biplane airliner built by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company at St. Louis — not the 1929 Model 53 Condor it was derived from, nor the B-2 Condor bomber behind that. Its 21 production aircraft were fitted as 12-passenger night sleepers for American Airways and Eastern Air Transport, and American marketed them as the world's first complete sleeper-planes. The Army Air Corps and Marine Corps flew small numbers as executive transports, one aircraft surveyed Antarctica with Byrd's 1933–35 expedition, and export and freighter Condors worked in Latin America and China into the 1940s. Curtiss built 45 T-32s in all; the all-metal monoplanes overtook the type within a few years, and no intact example survives.
Why It Mattered
The Curtiss T-32 Condor II was among the last of the biplane airliners, a large two-bay biplane designed to carry passengers through the night in sleeping berths. In 1934 American Airlines claimed its Condors were "The World's First Complete Sleeper-Planes", and for the next three years American's and Eastern Air Transport's aircraft flew frequent scheduled night routes. All-metal monoplanes such as the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-2 could already fly faster than the wood-and-fabric Condor, so the type's career was brief. The National Air and Space Museum's verdict is that the Condor was comfortable and fast but expensive to operate, and that newer designs soon replaced it.
Design Notes
Curtiss designer George A. Page Jr. derived the T-32 from two earlier Curtiss aircraft, the B-2 Condor bomber and the Model 53 Condor airliner, and developed it at the company's reopened St. Louis plant. The layout stayed conservative — a two-bay biplane of mixed construction with a single fin and rudder — but Page replaced the earlier Condors' water-cooled Conqueror V-12 engines with two air-cooled Wright Cyclone radials of 650 horsepower and gave the airliner retractable landing gear. The cabin was the design's real novelty: the production batch was built with luxury night-sleeper accommodation, its bunks folding down for the night. Later AT-32 conversions added variable-pitch propellers and improved engine nacelles, and the AT-32D could be converted from sleeper layout to 15 day seats. One innovation reached the airlines first on a Condor II: the practical variable-pitch propeller, which entered airline service in August 1933.
Operational History
The prototype, NX12353, made its first flight on January 30, 1933; type certification followed on March 18, and the first Condors entered commercial service. American Airways and Eastern Air Transport were the first customers, and their aircraft settled into scheduled overnight work — American's included daily overnight flights between Dallas and Los Angeles in the mid-1930s. The Army Air Corps bought two modified aircraft as YC-30 executive transports and the Marine Corps two more as R4C-1s; both services used their Condors primarily as VIP transports. One production aircraft, NR12384, was selected on the factory floor for Richard E. Byrd's second Antarctic expedition and spent 1933 to 1935 surveying from the Little America base, its fixed undercarriage swapping floats for skis as the work demanded. Abroad, Condors worked harder and longer: Colombia flew three float-fitted BT-32 bombers in its 1932–33 war with Peru, aircraft converted as freighters joined China National Aviation Corporation and flew in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and four former Eastern aircraft in Britain were impressed into RAF service. Latin America kept the type longest — the Argentine Navy flew three as transports until 1946.
Afterlife
The airline sleepers were retired first: they remained in service only until the Douglas Sleeper Transport, the DC-3's forerunner, took over the overnight trade. Byrd's 1933–35 aircraft was scrapped after its return to the United States, and the two Marine R4C-1s sent south with the U.S. Antarctic Service expedition of 1939 to 1941 never returned: one was abandoned after an engine failure on January 3, 1941, and the other was left on Watkins Island that March, because shipping the obsolete aircraft home was judged too costly. The last intact Condor was recorded in Mexico in 1950, when the last of the type were scrapped. No intact T-32 survives today, and Vintage Aviation News notes continuing interest in building an airworthy reproduction; for now, the National Air and Space Museum presents the type to the public as a model.