Liceul Tehnologic de Servicii „Sfantul Apostol Andrei” Ploiesti - Romania

FROM ICARUS TO INTERPLANETARY TRAVELS

Comenius Multilateral Partnership2012 – 2014

Flying from Manole to Vlaicu’s plane and Prunariu’s

rocket

Flying from Manole to Vlaicu’s plane

and Prunariu’s rocket an

This is a PPT material on the history of

Romanian aviation made by our school students, who were delighted to take part in this Comenius project due to the intellectual benefits and skills developed.

Short history of Romanian aviation

The Romanian orally-transmitted ballad says the story of the master mason Manole who was imprisoned by the king on the rooftop of the cathedral he had built, after he had said that he was able to build a more beautiful one.

In his attempt to save himself, he fashioned wooden wings and tried to fly off the roof, but he just fell to the ground and died. A spring of clear water has appeared to mark the spot where Manole fell. The well is still in front of the cathedral.

Manole was the first Romanian who tried to fly, inventing a wooden device and pushing himself beyond the human limits.

Other Romanian master masons had the same faith, but they all died because their wooden wings couldn’t help them fly.

Manole’s legend(16th century)

1765 – The French newspaper La Republique wrote about the Romanian Nestor Kostic from Deva, Transylvania who built a glider and flew it from the highest hill.

1818 – the first hot air balloon was launched in Bucharest

1884 – Ion Stoica from Transylvania invented a flying machine with folded wings, which managed to fly.

1893 – Mihail Braneanu designed the prototype of an aircraft which he couldn’t build due to financial issues, but his attempts convinced the authorities to establish an institution for flight in Romania.

First Romanian attempts to fly I

Ion Romanescu – built a glider and flew it in Craiova in 1910, then he sent photos and the design of the glider to the International Aeronautics Federation from Paris which named him “the youngest pilot in the world”.

Rodrig Goliescu – in 1909 built a beetle plane and then an airplane in France which flew 50 m.

Stefan Marculescu – was an engineer who designed in 1914 a completely original plane and his technical solutions are used even today.

First Romanian attempts to fly II

“Few nations in the world can pride themselves for having contributed to the progress of aviation as the Romanian nation has done.”

Henri Coanda Romanian engineer and inventor

At the beginning of the 20th century, Romania was among the few nations in the world who brought essential contributions to aviation and flying because there were people who dedicated their life and work to fulfilling the human desire to fly and developing aviation.

There were Romanian engineers, inventors, pilots who designed, invented essential devices, built planes and piloted them in the dawn of aviation history, at the same time with the world-renowned American and French inventors.

Romanian contribution to aviation history

Traian Vuia was a Romanian inventor and pioneer of aviation who designed, built and tested the first monoplane in Europe which actually flew without any exterior help, only with its own power.

Traian Vuia1872 – 1950

His monoplane traveled about 12 m (39 feet) on March 18, 1906, near Paris and his best distance was 24 m (79 ft). Vuia's invention influenced Louis Blériot in designing monoplanes. Between 1918 and 1921 Vuia built two experimental helicopters.

Aurel Vlaicu was a Romanian engineer, inventor, airplane constructor and early pilot. During his short career (1909 - 1913), Vlaicu designed and built three airplanes on his own and the first flew in 1910. His aircrafts, Vlaicu 1 and Vlaicu 2 had amazing performances which exceeded in quality those of Bleriot’s and were internationally recognized in 1913 at the air show from Aspern, Wien where Aurel Vlaicu and Roland Garros got the same first prize. Aurel Vlaicu died on September 13, 1913 near Câmpina, in his attempt to be the first to fly across the Carpathian Mountains.

Aurel Vlaicu1882 - 1913

Romanian inventor, Aerodynamics pioneer and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910, he was an engineer who successfully developed for the first time in the world the jet engine technology in 1910 which is used nowadays to the plane construction. In 1911 he was appointed the director of the Bristol plane factories, in the UK and he built planes for the French government during the First World War. He invented a great number of devices and discovered the Coandă effect of fluid dynamics for which he was granted a French patent in 1934 being a great discovery for aviation. In 1930 he designed a disc-shaped aircraft called Aerodina Lenticulara, a "flying saucer“ which hasn’t been built yet. He is the holder of over 250 invention patents.

Henri Coanda1886 - 1972

Dumitru Brumarescu (1872-

1937) He was a very active

Romanian inventor who built the first airplane with vertical take-off; it was exhibited in 1910 in Paris along with Coanda’s jet plane.

Grigore Briscu (1884-1965)

He was the first engineer who invented the technical devices of helicopters: horizontal, vertical and lateral movement and fixed-point landing. His automatic deviation device is still used in helicopter systems.

Anastase Dragomir (1896-1966)

He was a distinguished Romanian inventor, most famous for his "catapultable cockpit" patent (with Tănase Dobrescu) as an early form of ejection seat, although it was preceded by Everard Calthrop's 1916 compressed air ejection seat.

Smaranda Braiescu (1897-1948)

She was the first woman - pilot, the first patented woman paratrooper in Romania, European champion in skydiving (1931) and World Champion (1932), with a record of 7.233 m in Sacramento, USA. She was one of the few instructors Romania had in military skydiving.

Hermann Oberth (1894 - 1989), at 18 years old, wrote the fundamental equation of the rocket flight and designed the first rocket. He worked for European governments and developed the rocket construction, inventing devices and patenting several techniques and inventions.

Elie Carafoli (1901 - 1983) – was the greatest specialist in Mechanics of Fluids and spacecraft constructions, the president of the International Federation of Astronautics when Apollo 11 touched the Moon and worked in Romanian factories

George Constantinescu (1881 – 1965) introduces a new science called sonicity which he developed in the UK where the British government supported his work and inventions.

Tens of other talented engineers have been working in Romanian aviation factories.

Other Romanian contributions

to aviation

aviation and space travels

Modern Romanian

Although during communist era the Romanian aviation and industry were systematically oppressed by the Russian leaders in their attempt to destroy them (because they was considered a fierce rival), the Romanian engineers, inventors, workers and pilots from the aviation industry stood against the oppression and continued their work.

Communist era

ROMBAC 1-11 is the first jet airliner built in Romania by Enterprise Aircraft Bucharest (I.A.R.), the current ROMAERO Baneasa. The airplane ROMBAC 1-11 (YR-BRE) had its inaugural flight with passengers on 28 January 1983, on the route Bucharest-Timisoara and its first external flight was made on March 23, 1983 on the route Bucharest-London. Before 1989, I.A.R. Bucharest completely built 9 flying devices of this type.

Romanian aircraft productionROMBAC 1-11 YRE-BRE

IAR - was the first plane factory opened in Brasov in 1927 and till it was closed by the communist leaders in 1959, the engineers built here numerous planes before, during and after the second World War.

ICAR – the second plane factory was opened in Bucharest in 1932 and in 1951 it was transformed in another type of factory by the communists at the Moscow’s orders.

In these 2 factories many planes were designed and built and the Romanian plane industry was well-renowned all over Europe.

Romanian plane factories I

In 1968, Ceausescu declares the independence of aviation from the Moscow’s communism and re-opens the plane factory ICA in Brasov, which gets back its former name IAR after the Romanian revolution in 1989. There are important planes and helicopters built in this factory.

Aerostar Bacau is another plane factory from Romania where in 1974 there was built the first Romanian subsonic jet plane.

Avioane Craiova is another Romanian plane factory which was open 30 years ago and built several subsonic planes.

These factories are still working today building aircrafts.

Romanian plane factories II

ROMAERO BANEASA is an aerospace company opened in 1991 near Bucharest that integrates two major activities: aero-structure manufacturing and maintenance and repair for civil and military transport aircrafts. It is the largest company in the Romanian Aerospace Industry with 90 years of tradition in this field and it is located near the Baneasa and Coanda Airports.

ROMAERO BANEASA

Our students visiting ROMAERO plane factory

Dumitru Prunariu(born September 27, 1952)

Dumitru Prunariu was enrolled in the Romanian Air Force Officers Training School in 1977 and he became the only Romanian and the 103rd human being who flew in the Outer Space.

He was selected for spaceflight training in 1978 as a part of the Intercosmos Program and he performed a joint space flight with the Russian cosmonaut Leonid Popov in May 1981, when they completed an eight-day space mission on board of Soyuz 40 and in the Salyut 6 space laboratory, where they performed scientific experiments in the areas of astrophysics, space radiation, space technology, space medicine and biology.

ARCA is an NGO that promotes aerospace projects as well as other space-related activities. Its main objective is the exploration and colonization of space and it builds and launches the most cost effective space vehicles. ARCA has gained an experience unique in the world using the lowest budgets compared to their space achievements.

ARCARomanian Cosmonautics and Aeronautics

Association

ARCA has created a family of orbital rockets and a

suborbital plane, using cheap, safe and accessible technologies based on the Executor engine series, first having a thrust to weight ratio of 110, being the third in the world for this criteria, and second being the cheapest first stage engine ever created.

ARCARomanian Cosmonautics and Aeronautics

Association

The future starts now… the greatest adventure… of our history… higher… faster… further… we write history together.

ARCAwww.arcaspace.com

Romanian Cosmonautics and Aeronautics Association

He was one of the most experienced pilots in the Romanian aviation and after a career of piloting, at his retirement, he volunteered to fly in humanitarian actions, such as the transportation of doctors to harvest organs for transplants. On 20 January 2014, being in such a mission with 5 doctors on board, due to extreme weather conditions, he forced a landing in a forest in the Carpathian mountains. His experience helped him to save the lives of passengers during the crush. Unfortunately he and another doctor lost their lives while waiting to be rescued from the cold weather. The help arrived too late for them, after 6 hours from the impact. He is considered to be a hero for saving the lives of the doctors in the forced landing.

Adrian Iovan (1958-2014)

The modern history of Romanian Aviation starts with Traian Vuia, Aurel Vlaicu and continues with Henri Coanda, but the Romanian contributions in the world of aviation have also other names of great inventors, scientists, engineers, aircraft constructors and pilots that can stay with pride in the aviation hall of fame along with inventors from the other countries of the world.

AT THE END...

Teachers: ANDREI SORINA MONICA JIGAILA MARILENA and students from our school

Thank you for watching!