Insome what less than itwo years’ time, Rumania’s air arm anticipates taking into its inventory a somewhat polygenetic light
tactical fighter, the Orao (Eagle), which combines British engine technology with Rumanian and Yugoslavian aerodynamic
and structural design. Such multi-national developments are, in this day and age, commonplace. Between the world wars,
however, the licence manufacture of both engines and airframes was widespread but polygenous aircraft development such
as is today accepted as logical was virtually unknown.
Yet the single-seat fighter prototype that was flown for the first time 37 years ago, in April 1939, by Capt Dumitru “Pufi”
Popescu from the works airfield of the Industria Aeronauticä Romånä (IAR) at Bra§ov was every bit as multi-national as the
Orao which was to fly as a prototype three-and-a-half decades later. If its mixed parentage was neither admitted nor readily
detectable, the I AR 80 was, nonetheless, the product of a mating of a power plant based on a French original with an
airframe liberally utilising Polish structural design technology and expertise, the union of these elements having been
brought to fruition with creditable results by Professors lon Grosu and lon Cosereanu, and Engineers Gheorghe Zotta and G
Wallner.
Indeed, so elated by the results of initial flight testing were the Rumanians that they rather immodestly claimed their new
‘indigenous’ combat aircraft to be among the fastest in the world and within a month or two of the test programme being
launched readily furnished details and a photograph of the prototype for inclusion in that year’s edition of Jane’s All the
World’s Aircraft. Subsequently, little more was to be heard of this Rumanian warplane, despite the fact that several hundred
examples of the I AR 80 and its fighter-bomber derivative were manufactured and saw considerable operational use, and
today this fighter remains one of the most obscure of World War II’s combat aircraft.
When, on 22 June 1941, Rumanian forces attacked the Soviet Union in concert with the Wehrmacht, the Royal Air
Forces of Rumania, or Fortelor Aeriene Regal ale Romänia (FARR), possessed an extraordinarily heterogeneous in- ventory
of first-line aeroplanes representing a numerically sizeable air arm, but of the 12 fighter squadrons only three two with the
Heinkel He 112B and one with Hurricanes could be remotely considered as being mounted on combat aircraft capable of
facing anything more than the most modest of opposition. The remaining nine squadrons were flying strut- braced gull-
winged monoplanes, which, built under PZL licence by the IAR, were aged in concept if not manufacture,and the FARR
fighter element was understandably anxious to re-equip at the earliest possible opportunity with the modern IAR 80 which
was at that moment in time completing service trials.
The Industria Aeronauticä Romånä had been founded on 1 December 1925 as a joint stock company, capitai being provided
by a French group comprising Blériot-SPAD and Lorraine-Dietrich, the indigenous Astra company contributing a nucleus of
specialised personnel and the initial equipment, and the Rumanian State, in addition to contributing capital, providing the
land at Brasov for a factory and adjacent airfield. From its inception, the IAR comprised both airframe and aero engine
divisions, and although the company’s fledgeling design office was to evolve several original aircraft, some of which were
manufactured in limited numbers, IAR was primarily concerned with the licence production of airframes and aero engines of
foreign design. In so far as fighter development was concerned, it could be alleged to have both cut its teeth and grown to
maturity with Polish airframes and French engines. The IAR association with the Polish PZL (Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze,
or National Aviation Establishments) had begun in 1933 by which time it had become obvious that neighbouring Hungary
was re-arming, perhaps with the intention of recovermg Transylvania from Rumania when the P.ll gull-winged all-metal
monoplane was selected as standard equipment for the fighter element of the Rumanian Aeronautica Militara and the
decision taken to manufacture this type under licence at the IAR facility. In order to meet the most urgent need, 50 P. 11b
fighters were acquired direct from the parent Polish company between the autumn of 1933 and the summer of 1934, and
meanwhile preparations were made at Brasov with the aid of a PZL team for licence manufacture of an improved version,
the P. 11 f, deliveries of which to the Rumanian air arm, now redesignated FARR, actually began early in 1936. The P.11f
A total of 70 P. 11 f fighters had been built by the Brasov factory by late 1937,
when this type was finally phased out in favour of the conceptually similar but
refined, more powerful and more heavily armed P.24E. The newer Polish fighter
had been selected as a follow-on to the P. 11f in mid-1936, an IAR team spending
six months at the PZL factory at Okecie- Paluch, near Warsaw. At this time, the
PZL fighter design team, headed by Wsiewolod Jakimiuk, was already
investigating the design of a fighter of appreciably more advanced concept, having
been influenced by trends in the USA and elsewhere towards the all-metal
stressed-skin cantilever low-wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage as a
fighter configuration. These studies were eventually to lead to the P.50 Jastrzeb
(Hawk) and the IAR team led by Prof lon Grosu shared Jakimiuk’s conviction that
the fighter of the future would standardise on this concept.
was of relatively advanced structural concept in on production design had initiated work on a more modern successor in
October 1937, and the prototype of the new fighter, which had been assigned the dcsignation IAR 80, was to be completed
in the experimental shop at Bra§ov in December 1938. During the course of 1938, the IAR had been nationalised and work
had begun on a very substantial new factory at Brasov which was to be completed in 1939, at which time it was one of the
largest aircraft plants in the world certainly much larger than any of the US West Coast ‘giants’ of the time with a total fioor
area of near l-4m sq ft (130000 m2) and a personnel strength of some 7,000. About 592,000 sq ft (55 000 m2) was devoted
to airframe manufacture, 484,375 sq ft (45 000 m2) to aero engine manufacture and the remainder to aircraft equipment.
The IAR team, while setting its sights high in endeavouring to create as advanced a fighter as any known to be under
development in the more technologically-advanced countries, had tempered its enthusiasm with caution in that, in
designingthe IAR 80, it had utilised wherever possible proven components of the P.24E. Thus, the entire circular-section
semi-monocoque rear fuselage with its smooth stressed duralumin skinning, the vertical and horizontal tail surfaces and the
engine bearers were essentially those of the Polish fighter. The low wing of the new fighter employed a similar structure to
that of the P.24E in being built up of two I-section spars of duralumin sheet and 38 duralumin ribs, the whole being covered
by smooth duralumin sheet. Both the ailerons and the hydraulically-operated flaps were of duralumin tube with fabric
skinning, as were also the rudder and elevators. The forward and centre fuselage sections were built of chrome
molybdenum welded Steel tubing, the rear section being, as previously mentioned, a stressed-skin duralumin semi-
monocoque, and the fuel tank, which had a capacity of 88-65 Imp gal (403 l), was housed between the engine firewall and
the cockpit.
Accommodated by a long-chord NACA-type cowling and driving a variable-pitch three-blade metal VDM propeller, the
engine of the prototype was a similar IAR-K 14-111 C36 derivative of the French Mistral-Major to that installed in late
production P.24E fighters, and the hydraulically-operated wide-track main undercarriage members, which retracted inwards
into wing wells. had Messier oleo legs, the fixed metal tailskid having a TU-I AR type hydro-pncumatic shock absorber.
Provision was made for an armament of four 7,92- mm FN-Browning machine guns, these being mounted in the wings and
firing outboard of the propeller disc, an automatic fire-extinguishing system was installed, together with a standby pilot-
operated system, and the pilot was accommodated in an open cockpit aft of the wing trailing edge.
From the initiation of design in October 1937 to the commencement of flight testing in April 1939, a total of 1,250 man-weeks
had been expended over a period of 18 months, but the results of initial flight trials conducted by Capt Popescu convinced
IAR that it had created a fighter that compared closely with the best extant and was superior to most. Official trials proved as
successful as had been factory trials, a maximum speed of 317 mph (510 km/h) being recorded at 13,125 ft (4 000 m) and
an altitude of 16.405 ft (5 000 m) being attained in six minutes. Empty wcight was 3,924 lb (1 780 kg) and normal loaded
weight was 5,026 lb (2 280 kg). Although there was some criticism of view from the cockpit on the ground and during
landing, the handling characteristics and manoeuvrability were in general commended and IAR received instructions to
proceed with preparations for the series production of the fighter.
Various changes were dictated by the flight test programme and changes in FARR requiremcnts. For example, wing area
was marginally increased from 166-84 sq ft (15,50 m2) to 171 -90 sq ft (15,97 m2), overall span being stretched from 32 ft 9f
in (10,00 m) to 34 ft 5$ in (10,50 m); overall length was also increased, from 26 ft 7| in (8,16 m) to 29 ft 2\ in (8,90 m), as a
result of some lengthening of the engine bearers dictated by the use of the more powerful IAR-K 14-1000A and
commensurate lengthening of the aft fuselage to restore the CG. The single tailplane bracing struts a la P.24E were deleted
from the production model which was to fcature a cantilever tailplane; the hinged flaps on the mainwheel fairings were
discarded so that the lower half of the wheel was left exposed when retracted, and an aft-sliding blown plexiglass canopy
was adopted. The IAR-K 14-1000A engine was an improved version of the IAR-K 14-111 C36 which provided 1,025 hp at
6,560 ft (2 000 m).
Almost exactly one year after the début of the prototype, in the spring of 1940, the first production IAR 80 fighter was
completed at Brasov, a further 2,500 man-weeks having been spent in productionising the design, and 20 aircraft had been
completed by the end of the year, I AR personnel having been supplemented by a number of former PZL engineers who had
succeeded in escaping from Poland. The production IAR 80 attaincd maximum speeds of 319 mph (514 km/h) at 13,025 ft
(3 970 m) and 342 mph (550 km/h) at 22,965 ft (7 000 m), and its maximum range was 584 miles (940 km) at 205 mph (330
km/h). An altitude of 3,280 ft (1 000 m) was attained in 1-32 min and 14,765 ft (4 500 m) in 5-67 min, maximum ceiling being
34,450 ft (10 500 m). Loaded weight had risen from that of the prototype by some 595 lb (270 kg) to 5,622 lb (2550 kg).
At an early production stage, the FARR requested provision of heavier armament and also the further development of the
basic design to fulfil the röle of dive bomber. Thus,
after the completion of the first batch of 50 IAR 80s (constructor’s numbers 001-050) with a quartet of wing-mounted 7,92-
mm FN-Brownings, provision was made in the outer wing for an additional FN-Browning on each side to bring total gun
armament to six 7,92-mm weapons, the augmented armament being indicated by the addition of the
Six P.24E fighters had been built by the Okecie-Paluch factory to Rumanian requirements as pattern aircraft, these being
fitted with the IAR-K 14-11 C32 14-cylinder radial based on the Gnöme-Rhöne 14K Mistral-Major and providing 900 hp for
take-off and 870 hp at rated altitude, and production was launched at Brasov in 1937 with deliveries to the FARR
commencing in the following year against a contract for 50 aircraft. Some late production examples were to have the
improved IAR-K 14-111 C36 engine which afforded 930 hp at 11,810 ft (3 600 m).
