Mircea Zorileanu

BIOGRAPHY

MIRCEA ZORILEANU
in a Bleriot airplane in front of a hangar on Cotroceni airfield
Collection of Aurelian Simionescu, 12-19-04

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES - 1
via email from Aurelian Simionescu, 12-8-04 Mircea Zorileanu was the first pilot trained and licensed in Romania on 5th July 1911 at Cotroceni Piloting School of G. V. Bibescu. He is credited to have been experimented with machine gun aerial firing earlier in the WW 1. (I am attaching a photograph of him and a picture of a Bleriot airplane in front of a hangar on Cotroceni airfield).

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES - 2
via email from Aurelian Simionescu, 8-5-06      Here is some more information about Constantin-Mircea Zorileanu found on the www (http://www.aspera.ro/ website.
     He was born on October 14, 1883, Bucharest to Nicolae and Eufrosina Popescu. His father changed his name to Zorileanu (after Zorileni, the village of his birth) was a military doctor, promoted general by the end of his career.
     Mircea was trained as cavalry officer at Craiova between 1903 and 1905. After suffering a horse-back riding accident in the summer of 1910, he turned to aviation. He attend for a very short time the piloting school of Roger Sommer in France and after that Bibescu's piloting school in Cotroceni, Bucharest. He obtained his piloting license on July 15, 1911. Shortly after, on October 22, 1911 he was decorated with "Virtutea militara" for his piloting skills.
     On September 17, 1515, he crossed the Carpathian Mountains in flight, a never fulfilled dream of Aurel Vlaicu
     The books he wrote were: "Pentru Carpatii Nostrii" (For our carpathians) "Pe urmele libertatii' (On the Footsteps of Liberty) and "Ion Pripitu, postas aerian" (Ion Pripitul Aerial Postmen)
     Mircea Zorileanu died (apparently of tuberculosis) on February 15, 1919 in a hospital in Nevri, Italy.
Best regards,
Aurelian

Cotroceni Airfield
Collection of Aurelian Simionescu, 8-6-06

ONLINE RESOURCES If you search for "Mircea Zorileanu", using the Google search engine, (12-6-06), you will find about 14,400 links!! If you specify only websites in English, you will find about 23 links, most of them very helpful. The one cited immediately below is a "must-see" for any serious student.

Aeroclubul "MIRCEA ZORILEANU"
Sanpetru - Brasov This website, although written almost entirely in Romanian, is worth visiting to see a beautiful picture of Zorileanu in a Blériot. I did sample the other sections and found a number of interesting photos, mostly of gliders. You can access the homepage 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 Zorileanu. 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.

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