Aurel Vlaicu (1882-1913)

Romanian aeroplane constructor, inventor and airplane pilot; he was in the avant-garde of the world aviation. In 1910, on board of "Vlaicu I" and, one year later, on board of "Vlaicu II", which he personally designed and constructed, Aurel Vlaicu's flight performance was quite a feat for his time. Entering the June 1912 international flight competition held in Aspern-Vienna, he was awarded the first Prize of the competition for target launching, and the second Prize for steady point landing. In contrast with the foreign aeroplane constructors', his aircraft design solutions originality resided in the arrow -shaped body, the front placement of the depth rudder and of the low rudders, the variable elevation airplane wing adopting, during the flight, the form closest to the optimum, a tandem propeller, which, because of their rotation opposite to one another, had a mutual compensation of the torsion couple, the existence of a detachable undercarriage, a nd of a speed reduction unit between the aircraft engine and the propeller. Open field of view for the pilot, no matter the course of flight, was characteristic of his own made aeroplanes. "Vlaicu III" -his design of the years 1912-1913, was to be the first all-metal aeroplane in the world. He died dramatically, on the 13th of September 1913, when, aboard his "Vlaicu II", he attempted a flight over the Carpathians but his plane crashed down near the town of Campina.

Last update: 2004, October 27
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