The beginnings
At the 1910 Paris Air Show (Salon Aeronautique de Paris) a young engineer exhibited a strange aeroplane having no propeller. The propulsion consisted of the first ever built aero jet engine. The name of the inventor was Henri Coanda and his nationality was Romanian. Later, he became a world-famous aeronautical scientist (the “Coanda effect” was one of his discoveries) and a full member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences.
Immediately after World War I, several aeronautical factories were established in Romania. The most successful was IAR (Industria Aeronautica Romana) founded in 1925. During the next decades IAR produced 11 various types of aircraft engines, ranging from 130 to 1750 HP, 8 types of aeroplanes under license, 17 types of original Romanian design and manufacture aeroplanes, wooden and metallic propellers, landing gears, weaponry, fittings, various accessories, etc.
The greatest pride of IAR works has been the IAR 80 combat aircraft, which ranked fourth in the world on maxim speed. Basically a fighter in the Hawker Hurricane class, IAR 80 was also developed in the IAR 81 ground attack and reconnaissance version.
The manufacture of aircraft engines began early in 1927 with the French Lorraine-Dietrich W 12-cylinder water-cooled, ungeared, 450 HP engine license and continued with well-known products of that time: Gnôme-Rhône 7 K, 9 K , 14 K radial engines, Mercedes-Benz DB 605, etc.
At the same time, constant attention has been given to design and manufacture original engines, first by upgrading the existing ones (such as IAR K9, an improved version of Gnôme-Rhône 9 K) and afterwards by entirely new designed products.
In 1940 the IAR-1000 A1 radial engine entered production and started a series of more than 400 air-cooled, supercharged, 1040 HP (2500 rpm) double row radial engines. An improved version was later developed. The engine powered the highly appreciated combat airplanes IAR 80 and IAR 81.