Traian Vuia – 1906 – First powered aircraft landing gear / Romania

TRAIAN VUIA – FIRST POWERED FLIGHT with LANDING GEAR – August 1906
Text by Mihai Radu (see: www.earlyaviators.com/evuia.htm)

As an aviation pioneer, Traian Vuia (1872-1950) was the first to conceive and fly a machine heavier that air using for take off and landing its own on board devices: engine and landing gear with wheels. In August 1906, he built the airplane “Vuia 1 bis” for experimental purposes. He also applied for the first time a wing with in-flight variable incidence as well as the principle of a single tractive propeller and folding wings.


Traian Vuia graduated from the Public College of Lugoj, in 1892. His advanced studies were in Budapest, at the Polytechnic School, where he received his engineering diploma. He continued his studies with the Law Faculty, being awarded the degree of Doctor of Judicial Sciences in 1901, his thesis being “Military and Industry, State and Contract regime.” In 1902, he was in Paris, where he studied mechanical flight and presented to Science Academics a project of his own invention, “Airplane-automobile design” on February 16, 1903. Six months later, on August 17, 1903, he received the French patent number 332.106 for his airplane-automobile.


See : Wikipidea also see full scale model at the Traian Vuai Airport in Timisoara see

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Top: Vuia 2 With Folded Wings, May, 1907
Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Lauwers

Middle Left: Vuia I – “Liliacul”, March 18, 1906, Paris
Rt: Scale model created by the Fundatia Culturala Bartoc (on loan to Romanian Embassy, Wash., DC)
Bttm: D. Dimancescu and Ovidiu-Adrian Tudorache, 2nd Sctry, inspecting model at the Embassy (apr 16, 2010)