Bucharest Pipera Airfield was located in the

Pipera Pipera village is a neighborhood in Voluntari, Ilfov County, at the northern edge of the city of Bucharest, Romania. Development Until 1995, Pipera was an ordinary village. After that, an "El Dorado" of land transactions began. Plots of land th ...

neighborhood of

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, at the northern edge of the city, right next to the town of

Voluntari Voluntari () is a town in Ilfov County, Muntenia, Romania. It is located at a distance of 1 km from the northern border of Bucharest (on the DN2 road towards Urziceni) and is thus frequently viewed as a suburb of Bucharest. The population ...

Ilfov County Ilfov () is the Counties of Romania, county that surrounds Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It used to be largely rural, but, after the fall of communism, many of the county's villages and communes developed into high-income commuter towns, whi ...

. The airport no longer exists. A small military base, which also hosts the

National Museum of Romanian Aviation The National Museum of Romanian Aviation () is an aviation museum owned by the General Staff of the Romanian Air Force. The museum was established on 2 March 1990, being initially located on the RoAF 90th Airlift Base, Otopeni military base. In 2 ...

, remains in the location where the airport used to be.

History

The airfield was established in 1915. It was used by the

Romanian Air Corps The Romanian Air Corps or Aviation Corps (RAC) () was the air arm of the Romanian army until the formation of the Romanian Air Force. It was established on 1 April 1913 as the Military Aeronautics Service () and subordinated to the Engineer Insp ...

to continue the training of pilots who graduated from the

Cotroceni Cotroceni is a neighbourhood in western Bucharest, Romania, located around the Cotroceni hill, in Bucharest's Sector 5. The nearest Metro stations are Eroilor, Academia Militară, and Politehnica. History The Hill of Cotroceni was once cove ...

Military Pilot School. In October 1919, a Zeppelin-Staaken R.XIVa which crash landed near Cristinești was brought to Pipera. The heavy bomber flew from Cristinești to the airfield with a stop in

Adjud Adjud (; ) is a city in Vrancea County, Western Moldavia, Romania. It has a population of 15,178 inhabitants (as of 2021). It lies at a railway junction which has a classification yard and a passenger station. Adjud, situated north of the poin ...

. It was used to train bomber pilots for several years. In the interwar period, the airfield was used for civilian purposes as well. The first direct flight from

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to Bucharest was done by the French–Romanian airline company CFRNA/CIDNA, with an airplane piloted by Albert Louis Deullin, who landed at Pipera Airport in October 1921. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Pipera Airport was the main military airport in the Bucharest area. Some units of the

Romanian Air Force The Romanian Air Force (RoAF) () is the air force branch of the Romanian Armed Forces. It has an air force headquarters, an operational command, five air bases, a logistics base, an air defense brigade, an air defense regiment and an ISR (Intel ...

units were flying

IAR 80 The IAR 80 was a Romanian World War II low-wing monoplane, all-metal monocoque fighter and ground-attack aircraft. When it first flew, in 1939, it was comparable to contemporary designs being deployed by the airforces of the most advanced ...

fighters (built in

Brașov Brașov (, , ; , also ''Brasau''; ; ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Kruhnen'') is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the county seat (i.e. administrative centre) of Brașov County. According to the 2021 Romanian census, ...

), while a unit under the command of was flying

Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a monoplane fighter aircraft that was designed and initially produced by the Nazi Germany, German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt#History, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW). Together with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the ...

s from there. In the fall of 1940, Major Gotthard Handrick and a group

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

fighter pilots who had participated in the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

were sent by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

to help train the Romanian pilots at this airbase. After Romania entered the war on the side of the

Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...

, pilots based at the Pipera airfield participated in the battles on the Eastern Front, including the Siege of Odessa and the

Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad ; see . rus, links=on, Сталинградская битва, r=Stalingradskaya bitva, p=stəlʲɪnˈɡratskəjə ˈbʲitvə. (17 July 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II, ...

. In the spring of 1951, after the start of communist rule in Romania, aircraft repair facilities which had previously been located at the

airfield were moved to Pipera. In a secret report from June 1953, the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

assessed the facilities at the Pipera airfield as being the second best in Romania after those at Stalin Airfield near Brașov ( Stalin City at the time). The repair facility employed 250 civilian workers who serviced military aircraft. The airport was dismantled in 1958. On its former site, the Aviation Museum of Bucharest was inaugurated on 18 March 2006. Some of the old

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s have been incorporated into the museum, while the runway has been replaced by the

Dimitrie Pompeiu Dimitrie D. Pompeiu (; – 8 October 1954) was a Romanian mathematician, professor at the University of Bucharest, titular member of the Romanian Academy, and President of the Chamber of Deputies. Biography He was born in 1873 in Broscăuți, ...

Road and an office building. A local police station is also located on the same grounds.

Aviation Museum of Bucharest

References

{{authority control Transport in Bucharest Airports in Romania Buildings and structures in Bucharest Defunct airports in Romania 1915 establishments in Romania 1958 disestablishments in Romania

History

Aviation Museum of Bucharest

See also

References