page_title: Romanian air tours over Africa
section_title: Burnaia and Ivanovici's tour
hierarchical_section_title: Romanian air tours over Africa / Burnaia and Ivanovici's tour
caption_attribution_description: English: Route of romanian aviation raid in Africa, Entebbe, 1935 Română: Traseul raidului aviatic românesc în Africa, Entebbe, 1935
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Irina Burnaia also wanted to fly her own IAR-22 aircraft, registered as YR-INA, over Cape Town. Thus, she asked Petre Ivanovici, who had taken part in the tour of 1933, to make the crew. Then, she ordered an aircraft set of spare parts which were to be delivered to Cairo.
  Then they planned the itinerary: Bucharest – Istanbul – Eskișehir – Konya – Adana – Aleppo – Damascus – Gaza – Cairo – Assiut – Assuan – Wadi Halfa – Atbara – Khartum – Malakal – Juba – Entebbe – Nairobi – Dodoma – Mbeya – Mpika – Broken Hill – Salisbury – Bulawayo – Pietersburg – Johannesburg – Kimberley – Victoria West – Cape Town and return.
  The crew left the Băneasa airport at 10.00 in the morning on 3 January. During the flight, there were many mechanical failures and difficult taking off from Aleppo, where the ground is soft. Moreover, at Damascus, Ivanovici had a fever for a few days, which delayed so much their arrival in Cairo, on 12 February, where they stayed for eight days to have the aircraft overhauled. They continued the flight on 20 February flying over Luxor. They only took off from Assuan and Juba at 4.00 in the morning because of the hot weather. They took off from Entebbe, which is at an altitude of 1,150 metres, only after five days, with favourable wind. They decided to discontinue the flight, because Nairobi is located even higher, at 1,700 metres altitude, but they still flew over Lake Victoria up to the Equator. They had the aircraft as light as possible, by sending their stuff to Cairo with the Imperial Airways, and by supplying with fuel to only reach Juba. They stayed in Cairo for five days to make a complete overhauling and repainting of the aircraft. They were prevented from taking off from Haifa because of the rainfalls. They reached Băneasa back at 4.00 in the 24—March afternoon. The air raid lasted for 80 days as a whole, out of which only 16 days of flight, the rest being delays. In total, they flew over 12,000 km.
caption: Burnaia–Ivanovici route map
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