Romanian Aviation Myths

I'm starting this topic in order to debate the myths of the Romanian aviation history.

For the begining, I have two subjects:

1. The Soviets hated so much I.A.R. 80, so they asked us to destroy it.

2. (This one is super, I heard from a Romanian MiG Pilot) The Americans hate so much MiG 29 for it's superiority, so they asked us to retire it.

While talking of the I.A.R. 80, here is another myth - one of the most repeated and persistent ones - namely that it was the fourth fastest (i.e., best) fighter airplanes in the world in 1939 (after Hurricane, Curtiss P-37 and Bf 109E), with 510 km/h. See 'Istoria aviatiei romane', 'Constructii aeronautice romanesti', etc.

It has to be noted that in (April) 1939 only the prototype was flying. Thus all fighter prototypes existing at that time should be counted.

The first series manufactured '80 reached the combat units only in Dec. 1940. This way, the situation of all series-produced fighter airplanes existing at that time should be counted.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on August 08, 2008 09:33 pm

I agree, but here another question: was I.A.R. 90 better than any French, Polish and Italian fighter in 1940, when started the production?

It certainly was. Particularly, over Polish series-production fighters (P.Z.L. P.11). Compared with other types, it was inferior (e.g. Spitfire Mk. V). And so on.

However, the term "better" is very-very subjective. One can compare certain technical characteristics, but that doesn't give the overall picture. And then there were the pilots, without whom an aircraft is only a useless piece of metal and fabric...

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on August 09, 2008 07:03 am

I really hate the fact that most of us, Romanians, consider ourselves "buricul pamantului" - center of the earth in eng.
So

Why hate an obsolete (in 1944) fighter, which constituted just a fraction of the air armada put against the Soviets from 1941 onwards?

Anyway, plain facts debunk this myth. The IAR-80 was used as a frontline fighter by our airforce until 1948, and as a two-seater trainer until the early 50's. WE scrapped ALL of them in 1955. By that time it was just as useful in a probable war as a MiG-15 would be today.

Who was that pilot, Ganea?
This defies logic.
If
A. MiG-29 is superior
B. America and Romania are allies
than it would be logical that they would encourage us to keep it.

It's all BS. The particular MiG-29 version we (and all Warsaw Pact) had was superior to some of its contemporary (say 1990) US jets only in close combat due to maneuvrability and R-73/ HMS combination.

The MiG-29 was retired by the RoAF simply because it was more expensive to operate than the MiG-21 and we didn't have sufficient numbers to motivate an upgrade. Spare parts supply from Russia was also a problem.
Same reasons why the Czechs got rid of them early in the 90's and relied on the MiG-21 until recently.

Another great myth: first Romanian pilot who flown a jet was Tudor Greceanu

How about MiG-21 flights under the Cernavoda bridge? Mith or true?

Iama

Another example of a myth would be the delivery of the French-made Bloch MB 151/152 and Dewoitine 520 fighters to Romania, before or after the fall of France. Is there any documentary evidence that such a purchase/delivery was even taken into consideration, before or after June 1940?

It compared favourably with the Macchi C.200 "Saetta" and the Fiat G.50 "Freccia" (not to mention the Fiat CR 42 biplane, which was a recent aircraft - the prototype flew as late as the spring of 1938) and was superior in armament. The first generation of modern Italian fighters (i.e. cantilever monoplanes with retractable u/c, with the exception of the CR 42) had only two synchronised Breda-SAFAT machine-guns.

The Spitfire Mk.V replaced the Mk.I in 1941. Still, and in what regards performance figures, I think the Mk.I had a marked edge over the IAR 80. The results of the performance tests carried by A&AEE at Martlesham Heath in 1939 can be checked here: http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spitfire-I.html

Regarding French fighters, the D.520 was capable of facing the Bf 109E and holding its own. It had an excellent gun (a 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS 404 firing through the propeller's hub) and excellent maneouvrability. It it widely considered as the best fighter available to the Armée de l'Air in 1940.
By the time of the fall of France, the Bloch radial fighter formula had also been developed into a competent design, the MB 155. Armed with two HS 404 and two rifle caliber mgs., it reached a decent max. speed (550 km/h).

On the other hand, and if we speak of prototypes, the I-200 n.01 (first prototype of MiG-3 series) reached a speed of 648 km/h at 6.900m on 24 May 1940.

Cheers,

Ruy

P.S. Since we are talking about the relative virtues of the IAR 80 in 1940, one must put things in a global perspective as Dénes rightly noted. It should thus be interesting to note that the Belgian aviation industry proved to be capable of building a state-of-the-art fighter by the end of the 1930s, in the Renard R.36-38 series of prototypes. The prototype of the Merlin II engined version, the R.38, was able to reach a respectable max. speed of 545 km/h during tests in the summer of 1939. It was also reported to possess remarkable handling caractheristics.
According to the test pilot Paul Burniat, it was somewhere between the Hurricane and the Spitfire in flight behaviour and general performances (actually closer to the later) - from "Les Avions Renard, 1920 - 1970", by André Hauet and Guy Roberty, Brussels, 1996.

This post has been edited by Ruy Aballe on August 13, 2008 04:01 pm