Challenge International de Tourisme 1932
One Canadian (John Carberry) and one Romanian pilot (Alexander Papana) entered the contest in the German team.
Since one of the aims of the Challenge was to stimulate progress in aircraft development, it was not only pilots' competition, but technical trials also included a construction evaluation that promoted more advanced designs.
In fact, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Italy developed modern sports aircraft specifically to meet the demands of the Challenge.
Before the contest, a favourite was German Messerschmitt's BFW M.29, offering the highest performance, but due to two crashes during training, all BFWs were withdrawn.
All these aircraft had enclosed crew cabins, fixed landing gear and advanced wing mechanization (flaps and slat).
Since it was a tourist plane contest, features such as: a comfortable cabin with a good view, seats placed side-by-side, a rich set of controls, modern construction, safety devices and folding wings were also awarded points.
The German pilot Wolfram Hirth (Kl 32) was the best, taking off from the closest distance (91.6m - 40 pts), two Italians Colombo and Lombardi scored 40 points as well, other Klemms and Bredas were also at the head.
After the technical evaluation and these two trials, the leaders in the general classification were: the Italian Ambrogio Colombo and the Pole Franciszek Żwirko on the RWD-6.
A fuel consumption trial on a 300 km distance was held on August 19, and the German aircraft won in that category.
After all technical trials, Ambrogio Colombo led the general classification, with Franciszek Żwirko second, Italy's Francesco Lombardi third.
Before the next part, Winifred Spooner was forced to land near Berlin due to sabotage of her fuel, and she decided to withdraw.
From the beginning, the German crews tried to take advantage of faster aircraft and make up for the points lost in the technical trials.
On the other side, the Poles, with slower planes, tried to keep a good cruise speed and flight regularity, which were awarded with points in the rally.
Only 33 crews reached Rome, three had forced crash landings (among others, the Romanian Aleksander Papana flying Monocoupe 110).
On that day, two Italian Bredas crashed due to weak wing construction (one mechanic died bailing out).
The first pilot in Berlin, and the fastest in the whole race, was the German Hans Seidemann with a cruise speed of 213 km/h, flying the Heinkel He 64b.
The second and third place was occupied jointly by Germans: Fritz Morzik (Heinkel He 64c, the winner of the Challenge 1930) and Reinhold Poss (Klemm Kl 32V) with 458 points.
Less than a month after the Challenge, Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura died in an accident, flying their RWD-6 to Czechoslovakia in a storm on September 11, 1932.
