Some outstanding Romanian achievements in aviation

Mid 16th century - Ioan Românul (Johann der Wallache) experimented at Army's Arsenal in Alba-Iulia explosive powders used for reactive projectiles or rockets.
1702 - The outlaw Grigore Pintea built a glider.
1765 - Constantin Nestor from Deva built a glider; his 80 meters flight was described in the French newspaper "La Republique"
1880 - Gheorghe Vaarlam Ghiţescu built a dirigeable baloon.
1884 - Ion Stoica built an ornithopthere.
1905 - Romanian engineers Popescu and Boicescu and Austrian mechanic Schwartz created in Vienna the system of navigation for zeppelins.
1908 - Teodor Dobrescu projected in Slatina a multiplane aircraft.
1909 - George Arion designed an airplane with the propeller directly coupled to the engine.
1909 - Vasile Dimitrescu designed the first stealth airplane in the world, with electric engine and smoke/fog generators (Patent 1428/15 May 1909).
1910 - George Arion built in Bucharest the first aircraft with variable geometry in the world.
1910 - Niculae Ion Vasiliu built in Bucharest an airplane-helicopter, provided with 6 propellers.
1910 - George Brişcu built several models of helicopters.
1911 - Ion Paulat built the first hydroplane in the world.
1913 - Constantin Marinescu designed the first passenger aircraft with a capacity of 15 seats.
1917 - Hermann Oberth designed in Sighişoara a huge military multistage rocket, with liquid fuel. The Austrian and German military authorities were not interested in the project.
1925 - Aurel Biju and Eugene Sziklay participated in air meetings with their own designed parachutes.

Gheorghe Marinescu

Gheorghe Marinescu (February 28, 1863, Bucharest – May 15, 1938, Bucharest) was a Romanian neurologist, founder of the Romanian School of Neurology.

Fatherless, Marinescu was guided, at his mother’s insistence and due to precarious means, towards becoming a priest, entering the seminary. Acquiring ethical and moral conduit, he then attends the Polytechnic School and then the classes of the Faculty of Medicine at the Bucharest University, with Victor Babeş as one of his professors. He received most of his medical education as preparator at the laboratory of histology at the Brâncoveanu Hospital and as assistant at the Bacteriological Institute under Victor Babeş, and with Babeş already early published several works on myelitis transversa, hysterical muteness, dilatation of the pupil in pneumonia etc.

Marinescu went with a grant to Paris to undertake postgraduate training in neurology and studied here for eight years while working for two great hospitals: the Salpêtrière Hospital, run by the famous Jean-Martin Charcot, and the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. He later worked with Carl Weigert in Frankfurt a.M. and then with Emil du Bois-Reymond in Berlin. On the assignment of Pierre Marie he lectured on the pathological anatomy of acromegaly at the Berlin International Congress in 1890. Returning to the country, he will make the best use of what he had previously learned, in the Pantelimon (where a new professorial department had been created for him) and Colentina hospitals. He received his doctorate in 1895 at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. Shortly thereafter, in 1897, a chair of Clinical Neurology was created in the University of Bucharest, at the Colentina Hospital. He remained in this post for the next 41 years and is regarded as the founder of the Romanian School of Neurology.

Between July 1898 and 1901 Marinescu made the first science films in the world, in his clinic in Bucharest: The walking troubles of organic hemiplegy (1898), The walking troubles of organic paraplegies (1899), A case of hysteric hemiplegy healed through hypnosis (1899), The walking troubles of progressive locomotion ataxy (1900) and Illnesses of the muscles (1901). In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the priority of professor Marinescu concerning the first science films.

Gheorghe Marinescu has been one of the first doctors in the world to apply histologic, histopathologic and anatomoclinics in the scientific research in the field of neurology. Important original contributions are made in the field of fiziology, histopathology and the practical learning of the nervous system (the theory of reflex trophicity, the palmomentony reflex, kinetoplasma, chromatolysis, neuronophagy). He owned over 1000 highly precious publications making a significant contribution to the world medicine in the domain of modern neurology. He published the book “The Nervous Cell” (2 volumes, over 1000 pages) in 1909, in Paris. It was the first book of that kind in the world, and it was not surpassed yet. Gheorghe Marinescu was an eminent teacher. In his lectures he emphasised ideas and gave perspective for further investigations. He was elected as a member of Romanian Academy in 1906 and was also member of 7 foreign academies.

Several words from his will: “No flower. No discourse. Those who have loved me should use the money for poor children and the good words to encourage the suffering… leaving for the world nobody ever came back from, I would not want to affect anybody but the truth must yet be told: there is too much injustice in the blessed Romanian Country”.

Olăneşti Bath

Known also under the name of “Izvoarele de Aur” (Golden Springs), Băile Olăneşti (Olăneşti Bath) is a small town in the central-southern part of Romania (Vâlcea county), on the Olăneşti River (right tributary of the Olt River), in the Sub-Carpathian depression of Olăneşti, elevation 430-475 m, 18 km NW of Rîmnicu Vîlcea (seat of Vîlcea County). The protective climate with mild winters (January average - 2.5°C) and cool summers (July average 21°C), annual average temperature: 8.5°C is very pleasant. The rainfall are moderate (750 mm annually) and the winds are rare and slow. Ozoniferous air in the surrounding forests.


Băile Olăneşti it is on the top of the spas in Romania considering the number of springs, their daily total flow rate, as well as the variety of compounds and the concentration of mineral springs. The resort has over 35 hydro mineral sources, both as natural springs and as a result of some mining and drilling works (pits and galleries). A number of 15 mineral springs are caught to be used in internal cure. Two mineral springs and four mineral water wells are used in external cure.


Băile Olăneşti is an all-season resort of national importance, with sulphurous, chlorided, slightly iodinated, brominated, sodic, calcic, magnesian mineral waters of various concentrations (oligomineral, hypotonic, isotonic, hypertonic) known from the 18th century. The first chemical tests of these mineral waters were made back in 1830. In 1873 these mineral waters got the gold medal at the International Exhibition in Vienna. The mineral waters of the springs at Băile Olăneşti are recommended in internal cure for the treatment of chronic diseases of the kidneys and urinary system (kidney lithiasis, chronic pyelonephritis, chronic glomerulonephritis), of the alimentary canal (hypoacid gastritis, biliary dyskinesis, chronic cholecystitis, chronic hepatitis etc.), metabolic and nutrition disorders (diabetes melitus, obesity etc.), respiratory (microbial or viral pneumopathy, allergic asthma, bronchitis, etc.), dermatological (incipient ichthysis, chronic eczema and rash, neurodermatitis, acne etc.) and otorhynolaryngological diseases (laryngitis, nasal and sinuses allergy), associated diseases (degenerative and abarticular rheumatic troubles, asthenic neurosis, endocrine disorders etc.).


The resort provides installations for warm baths with mineral waters in tubs, for electrotherapy and hydrotherapy, gyms, etc. There are 24 springs for drinking mineral water. Băile Olăneşti is among the few places in the country where treatments are developed for the strengthening of the body of people affected by various allergic diseases, by applying injection with isotonic sulphurous mineral water directly from the source. Not to mention, this treatment also represents a world premiere. (from www.ici.ro and www.destinatiaromania.eu)