Huts in Zemun

Zmaj, the Dragon, began modestly. Engineer Jovan Petrović and industrialist Dragoljub Šterić founded the Airplane and Hydroplane Factory Zmaj on 15 March 1927 in prefabricated barracks in Zemun, then just across the river from Belgrade. It was Serbia’s third aircraft factory, and at first it repaired aircraft and made simple spare parts, moving to a larger site in 1928 and building French designs under licence.

Fizirs for every flying club

Its bread and butter was Rudolf Fizir’s trainer. Fizir’s small Petrovaradin workshop designed the FN biplane but had no means to mass-produce it, so Zmaj did, from 1930, for the Aero Club and then the air force; with its benign low-speed handling, it taught a generation of Yugoslav pilots to fly. Zmaj built 137 FNs, plus FP and F1 variants. The Depression cut its workforce to just 15 in 1932, but a licence for the three-engined Spartan Cruiser for the airline Aeroput carried it through.

Hurricanes and a broken bomber

Rearmament brought licence-built Hawker Furies and, from the late 1930s, 24 Hawker Hurricanes. Its own ambition was the R-1, a twin-engined reconnaissance bomber by technical director Dušan Stankov; it flew on 24 April 1940, was damaged in a wheels-up landing and then again when German bombs fell on Zemun in April 1941. Zmaj repaired aircraft during the occupation, and in 1946 it was nationalised and merged with Rogožarski into Ikarus, having built 359 aircraft.

Factories

• Tošin bunar works · Tošin bunar 27, Zemun — Founding site, 1927
• Karađorđeva Street works · Zemun — Larger site from 1928

People

• Jovan Petrović · co-founder, engineer
• Dragoljub Šterić · co-founder, industrialist
• Dušan Stankov · technical director — Led the R-1 bomber design
• Rudolf Fizir · designer — Fizir trainer family