The Romanian air tours over Africa were a series of trips, called "raids" in Romanian literature, made by the Romanian airmen over Africa between 1933 and 1935, with the purpose of promoting air tourism, Romanian airplanes, as well as Romanian aviation in general. Given global aviation development, exploring its possibilities and setting up aircraft records were an everyday occurrence. The one who had the idea of making a major air tour was Lieutenant colonel Alexandru Cernescu, in 1932. A core of aircraft pilots consisting of Alexandru Cernescu and captains George Davidescu and Mihail Pantazi began to organize the air tour. They chose the distance from Bucharest to Cape Town and return to be the route. The first air tour of 1933 did not reach its goal, as it stopped at Malakal. In 1933 and 1935, Gheorghe Bănciulescu also conducted two air tours over Africa, the first to Cairo, over the Near East, returning over North Africa and Italy, and the last exploring the possible air routes over Central Africa. At the beginning of 1935, Irina Burnaia also attempted to cover the route to Cape Town by her own plane, reaching the Victoria Lake. In 1935 Cernescu, Davidescu, Pantazi, Gheorghe Jienescu, Gheorghe Olteanu and Anton Stengher managed to complete the air tour.
Historical background Aviation began to develop rapidly after World War I. There appeared various types of aircraft, not only military but also civil aircraft, including passengers, postal and private aircraft. Each aircraft manufacturer wanted to bring their airplanes in the public eye, the airline companies explored new routes, whereas military aviation was interested in increasing the performance of the military aircraft: the speed, the ceiling, the rate of climb, the transport capacity etc. Besides record-breaking, aviation asserted itself by air "tours", long-distance travels, such as those from London to Melbourne, from Paris to Tokyo and return, or from Bucharest to Saigon and return. Due to its difficult climatic, meteorological and terrain conditions, Africa was considered a continent where the qualities of the aircraft and the skill of the pilots could be fully aired. As far back as October 1913, the French aviator Pierre Daucourt and his mechanic, Henri J. Roux, attempted to fly a Borel monoplane from Paris to Cairo, but they could not fly above the Taurus Mountains. The first air tour over Africa, from Cairo to Khartoum, was conducted by Marc Pourpe between 4–12 January 1914, flying around 2,000 km, via Luxor, Wadi Halfa and Abu Hamad. He carried a mail bag during the tour. The return flight to Cairo was conducted between the 19 January and the 3 February. The South Africans Pierre van Ryneveld and Quintin Brand (1920) and the Englishman Alan Cobham (1925) conducted air tours from London to Cape Town. The London – Cape Town route will become the target of many records, such as those broken by Reinhold Ferdinand Caspareuthus (1930, 77 hours),) or Glen Kidston (1931, 57 hours)
Planning the tours The idea behind Romanian air tours conducted in Africa appeared in 1932, when a core group of three officers, Lieutenant colonel Alexandru Cernescu, Captains George Davidescu and Mihail Pantazi began to do some research for this purpose. At that time Alexandru Cernescu held the highest rank as a flight instructor at the Military Aviation School. George Davidescu, as a member of the State Undersecretariat for Air, dealt with the proper organization of the tour, as he was also the main navigator. Mihail Pantazi was a flight instructor and director and he taught the aircraft engines at the Romanian Association for the Promotion of Aviation (ARPA) Flight School. First, they studied the route of a flight around the Mediterranean Sea, which started from Bucharest, then continued over Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, France, and back to Bucharest. Although the route exceeded 10,000 km, they did not considered it difficult enough. In order to demonstrate the performance the Romanian aircraft could reach, the route over the centre of Africa to Cape Town was conducted by a flight formation of three school and training aircraft, which technically reached a small private aircraft performance. The round-trip route exceeded 24,000 km.
Bucharest – Malakal tour
Three ICAR M23b aircraft of the ARPA, registered as YR-AAP, YR-ABL și YR-ABO, were selected to perform the tour. Through the efforts of the State Undersecretariat for Air, the fuel necessary for the tour was provided by the Astra Română refinery, and delivered by Shell. Shell also provided the documentation: air guides, newsletters and weather forecasts. The aircraft were overhauled and fitted with additional gas tanks providing an 800 km flight autonomy, improved fuel tanks, dust filters for engines. They were supplied with spare parts (even a propeller attached above the posterior fuselage of YR-AAP aircraft, as shown in the picture below) and repair kits, signaling missiles, a first aid kits, food and water supplies, 1: 1,000,000 or 1: 2,000,000-scale maps, papers, even handguns. Lieutenant Petre Ivanovici and Max Manolescu, aerobatics pilots and flight instructors at the ARPA piloting school, as well as the aircraft technician Dumitru Ploeșteanu also took part in the team. The crews were distributed as follows: Cernescu and Manolescu on board the YR-AAP, Davidescu and Ivanovici on board the YR-ABL, and Ploeșteanu and Pantazi on board the YR-ABO.
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