IAR 93's at Craiova storage base, RomaniaA group of 21 BAES members had an excellent military tour of Romania in late July by invitation from the Public Relations department of the RoAF. They visited 6 RoAF bases, 2 storage areas, a police flying unit at Baneas and two excellent museums. Hign point of the tour was the RoIAS at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Airbase. For more information see the Romania 2006 report at BAES website.
IAR 93 Vultur (Orao) is a light ground-attack aircraft developed as a joint Yugoslav-Romanian project in the 1970s for the air forces of both nations. The Romanian aircraft was built by IRAv Craiova (today Aerostar SA), and its Yugoslav counterpart by Soko as the Soko J-22 Orao. For Romania, the IAR 93 was intended to replace MiG-15s and MiG-17s in the fighter-bomber role. The last IAR-93s were withdrawn and mothballed from the Romanian Air Force in 1998.
Picture added on 31 August 2006
fact is it was never called "vultur" in the romania, just iar-93. Vultur (eng. Eagle) is just a translation of the serb word "orao".
"the romanian aircraft was built by irav craiova (today aerostar sa)".
the first prototype (001) was built by ura (eng. Aircraft repair plant) bacau (today aerostar sa) near the city of bacau, while all the others were built at iav (eng. Airplane factory) craiova, near the city of craiova, a few hundred miles away from bacau.
Added by Adrian V. on 26 September 2006.