 In 1932, flying his self-built glider "Kondor", he won a first prize at the Rhön Glider Competition.Dittmar then became a research pilot.In 1934, he, Hanna Reitsch, Peter Riedel, and Wolf Hirth were members of Professor Georgii's South American Glider Expedition, where in Argentina he achieved a new world gliding altitude record (about ).