MICHEL MOLLA

 

PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON CHITILA AIRFIELD Gheorghe Negrescu in the pilot's seat, Aurel Vlaicu in the passenger's seat , from left to right military pilots Protopopescu, Parvulescu, Popescu, and the mechanic Nichita Pasev.

 

Chitila Piloting School via email from Aurelian Simionescu, 12-8-04      Stefan Protopopescu was trained and licensed at Chitila Piloting School, near Bucharest. The school was a joint venture founded by Mihail Cerchez on November 20th 1909. The school, conducted by French flight instructors, had five hangars, rostrums for spectators and assembly shops where Farman planes brought from France were assembled.       Official opening of the school was made on July 9th 1910 when the chief flight instructor and director of the school René Guillemin attempted a demonstration flight. Unfortunately, shortly after take off, he crashed his Farman biplane from a height of 40 meters and broke his leg.      Guillemin was succeeded by Michel Molla who on September 7th 1910 made the first cross flight over Bucharest. Molla was followed by flight instructor Charles Villard (who crushed his plane only 3 days after his arrival from France on May 18th 1911, injured his leg and never flew again) and by Luis Martinez-Rex.      Six officers were trained as pilots on Chitila Piloting School but only two were licensed: sub-lieutenant Stefan Protopopescu and sub-lieutenant Gheorghe Negrescu.       Due to financial difficulties the school was closed in 1912.

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Michel Molla", using the Google search engine, (12-19-04), you will find 96 potential links, one of them very important.

PIONIERII AVIATIEI ROMANESTI Bogdan Benea      This website, written entirely in Romanian, contains six references to Molla. Unfortunately, when I tried to translate it, using an online machine program, the results were too confusing for me to make any sense out of them. If you are lucky enough to read Romanian, you can access the page by clicking on the title above. If you can share an English translation with us, it will be greatly appreciated and added to this story.

 

ROMANIAN AIRPORT SERVICES      On this page, entitled "Baneasa Airport / History ," you will find the following brief reference to Molla. "1910, 17th-30th of October - The first international aircraft meeting of Romania and of Eastern Europe took place. Among the participants were Aurel Vlaicu, whose plane broke all records at Aspern, Austria, George Valentin Bibescu, the Romanian pilot with the patent no. 20 in the world and Michel Molla, the French pilot. "      You can access the page by clicking on the title above.

 

The Romanian Air Corps in WWI      This page on the Axis History Forum website, offers a very interesting and comprhensive revue of the Romanian Air Corps submitted by "Victor.". It includes mention of many of the pioneer aviators who are found on the pages of my website, including Michel Molla. As a background for a more complete understanding of the stories of each individual aviator, I found it to very helpful. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.

 

I have no information as to the dates of his birth or his death.   If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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