Aero A.32

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The Aero A.32 was a biplane ground attack aircraft built in Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s. While the design took the Aero A.11 as its starting point (and was originally designated A.11J), the aircraft incorporated significant changes to make it suited for its new low-level role.

Like the A.11 before it, the A.32 provided Aero with an export customer in the Finnish Air Force, which purchased 16 aircraft as the A.321F and A.32GR (which spent most of their service lives as trainers). At least one fuselage has survived, preserved at the Finnish Air Force Museum (in storage, as of 2003).

A total of 116 of all variants were built.

[edit] Operators

•  Czechoslovakia
•  Finland

[edit] Specifications (A.32)

General characteristics

• Crew: two, pilot and observer
• Length: 8.20 m (26 ft 11 in)
• Wingspan: 12.40 m (40 ft 8 in)
• Height: 3.10 m (10 ft 2 in)
• Wing area: 36.5 m² (393 ft²)
• Empty weight: 1,046 kg (2,301 lb)
• Loaded weight: 1,917 kg (4,217 lb)
• Powerplant: 1× Gnome-Rhone built Bristol Jupiter radial engines, 313 kW (420 hp)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 226 km/h (141 mph)
• Range: 420 km (262 miles)
• Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,040 ft)
• Rate of climb: 171 m/min (561 ft/min)
• Wing loading: 53 kg/m² (10.7 lb/ft²)
• Power/mass: 160 W/kg (0.10 hp/lb)

Armament

• 2 × forward-firing .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine guns
• 2 × .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis machine guns in flexible mount for observer
• Up to 12 × 10 kg (22 lb) bombs

[edit] Related content

Related development

Aero A.11

Designation sequence

A.27 - A.29 - A.30 - A.32 - A.34 - A.35 - A.38