- Aurel Vlaicu
Aurel Vlaicu IPA|/a.u'rel 'vlaj.ku/ (
November 19 ,1882 –September 13 ,1913 ) was aRomania n engineer, inventor, airplane constructor and early pilot.Biography
Aurel Vlaicu was born in Binţinţi (now Aurel Vlaicu), near
Orăştie ,Transylvania , which was part ofAustria-Hungary at the time. He attended Calvinist High School in Orăştie (renamed "Liceul Aurel Vlaicu" in his honour in 1919) and took hisBaccalaureate inSibiu in 1902. He furthered his studies atTechnical University of Budapest andLudwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, earning his engineer's diploma in 1907.After working at
Opel car factory inRüsselsheim , he returned to Binţinţi and built aglider he flew in the summer of 1909. Later that year, he moved toBucharest , in theKingdom of Romania , where he began the construction of "Vlaicu I" airplane; it flew for the first time onJune 17 ,1910 .With his "Vlaicu II" model, built in 1911, Aurel Vlaicu won several prizes summing 7,500
Austro-Hungarian krone (for precise landing, projectile throwing and tight flying around a pole) in 1912 atAspern Air Show nearVienna , where he competed against 42 other aviators of the day, including Roland Garros.Aurel Vlaicu died in 1913 near
Câmpina while attempting to cross in flight theCarpathian Mountains in his aged "Vlaicu II" airplane. He is buried at theBellu cemetery, in Bucharest.Legacy
During his short career he built three original, arrow-shaped airplanes, with flight controls in front, two coaxial propellers,
NACA -like ring around the engine, and independent suspension-tricycle-landing-gear with brakes. At the time of his death, a two-seated monoplane "Vlaicu III", ordered byMarconi Company for experiments with aerial wireless radio, was only partially built. After Vlaicu's death the plane was completed by friends, and several short experimental flights were made during 1914. Further tests were hindered by the unusual controls of the airplane, no other pilot was familiar with.In 1916, during the German occupation of Bucharest, "Vlaicu III" was seized and shipped to Germany. The airplane was last seen in a 1942 aviation exhibition in
Berlin .Vlaicu was posthumously elected to the
Romanian Academy in 1948.Bucharest City Airport in Băneasa was named after him.
External links
* [http://www.earlyaviators.com/evlaicu.htm Aurel Vlaicu ] at www.earlyaviators.com
* [http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?IDX=GB191026658&CY=ep&LG=en&DB=EPODOC Great Britain Patent GB191026658]
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