Aurel Vlaicu
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Aurel Vlaicu Template:IPA (born November 19, 1882, in Bintinti, near Orastie, Hunedoara County, died September 13, 1913, near Banesti, Campina) was a Romanian engineer, inventor, airplane constructor and early pilot.
He attended Calvin High School in Orastie (renamed "Liceul Aurel Vlaicu" in his honour in 1919) and took his Baccalaureate at Sibiu in 1902. He furthered his studies at Technical University of Budapest and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, earning his engineer diploma in 1907.
After working at Opel car factory in Rüsselsheim, he returned to Bintinti and built a glider he flew in the Summer of 1909. Later that year, he moved to Bucharest where he began the construction of Vlaicu I airplane, which first flew on June 17, 1910.
With model Vlaicu II, built in 1911, Aurel Vlaicu won several prizes summing 7500 Austro-Hungarian krone (for precise landing, projectile throwing and tight flying around a pole) in 1912 at Aspern Air Show near Vienna, where he competed against 42 other aviators of the day, including Roland Garros.
Aurel Vlaicu died in 1913 near Campina while attempting to cross in flight the Carpathian Mountains in his aged Vlaicu II airplane.
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 by Marconi 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 an aviation exhibition in Berlin in 1942.