Vuia I: self-propelled take-off monoplane
Vuia I: monoplano con despegue autónomo
- Date
- 1906 · confidence high
- Place
- Montesson, Yvelines, France
- Credited to
- Traian Vuia
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A monoplane with a carbonic-acid engine, bicycle wheels and adjustable wings that took off by its own means, without catapult or ramp, and flew about twelve metres at a height of one metre on 18 March 1906.
Vuia's hops were not sustained, controlled flight; Santos-Dumont's 14-bis (October 1906) is held to be the first officially verified flight in Europe. Vuia, a Romanian, worked in Paris. The carbonic-acid engine was impractical.
What it led to
- Vuia I was the first tractor monoplane to take off under its own power
- studies of lift and wheeled landing gear
- his 1918 helicopter