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Romania Aviation Industry
In the 1960s and 1970s, Romania reestablished its
pre-World War
II position as one of the few countries with a national
aviation
industry. The Soviet Union cooperated to an extent but
also tried
to confine Romania to producing relatively unsophisticated
aircraft
at a lower level of aviation technology. Romania
therefore
established extensive ties with several non-Warsaw Pact
countries
and undertook licensed production of foreign aircraft and
coproduction of the IAR-93, the first non-Soviet combat
aircraft
ever built and flown in the air force of a Warsaw Pact
member
state.
Romania had a strong national aviation industry during
the
interwar years. It produced more than eighty models of
aircraft and
employed 20,000 engineers, technicians, and other workers.
But most
of its aircraft production capability was destroyed in
bombing
raids during World War II, and the post-war recovery of
the
industry proceeded slowly. The Soviet Union forced Romania
to
convert its remaining capacity to tractor production but
eventually
allowed it to resume production of motorized gliders and
agricultural, utility, scout, and medical evacuation
aircraft.
Advancing the aviation industry to a higher technological
level
became a priority when Ceausescu came to power in 1965.
Romania began producing light military training
aircraft in the
early 1970s. The first, the IAR-28MA, was developed on the
basis of
the IS-28M2 motorized glider. In 1974 the first of
seventy-five
IAR-823 two-seat turboprop primary training aircraft was
built for
the air force. In 1978 the Soviet Union granted a license
to
produce 200 two-seat Yak-52 piston engine trainers
annually for the
Soviet Air Force. Four years later, Romania began
producing the
IAR-825TP TRIUMF two-seat turboprop training aircraft for
its own
air force. In 1986 the Soviet Union awarded Romania
production of
the single-seat Yak-53 trainer, an upgraded Yak-52.
Building
Soviet-designed training aircraft, however, did little to
increase
the technology base of the Romanian aviation industry.
As of 1989, Romania's greatest achievement in the
aviation
field was the development and production of the IAR-93, a
singleseat light fighter aircraft, in collaboration with
Yugoslavia. The
joint Yugoslav-Romanian (YUROM) program began in 1970, and
serial
production of the IAR-93 started in 1979. The IAR-93,
designed for
a close air-support and ground-attack role, was produced
in two
variants. The thirty IAR-93A aircraft in service with the
Romanian
Air Force in 1989 had two Rolls-Royce Viper Mk 632
turbojet
engines. The 165 IAR-93B aircraft on order had two
afterburnerequipped Mk 633 engines. The IAR-93 had a fully-loaded
combat
radius of 300 to 400 kilometers. It was armed with two
twin-barrel
23mm cannons and carried a maximum bomb load of 1,300
kilograms on
four wing pylons and one fuselage attachment point. In
conjunction
with bringing the IAR-93 into service, Romania developed
and built
the compatible IAR-99 advanced jet trainer at Craiova in
the 1980s.
In the mid-1970s, the Romanian state aviation firm,
Industria
Aeronautica Romana (IAR), began building the first of 200
Alouette
III and 100 Puma helicopters on a license from the French
firm
Aerospatiale, under the designations IAR-316B and IAR-330,
respectively. The air force operated the IAR-316B and
IAR-330 as
armed transports in support of the ground forces. They had
pylons
for four AT-3/SAGGER antitank guided missiles or sixteen
57mm
rockets.
Data as of July 1989
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