Reconnaissance for the army advancing into Bulgaria.

The Romanian-language Wikipedia records that five aviation sections with 18 aircraft were mobilised for the campaign and that the first operational mission, a reconnaissance flight, was flown on 24 July 1913; by the end of the year Romania had 20 licensed pilots and 34 aircraft. There was no air fighting — Bulgaria had its hands full elsewhere — and the campaign was short, but it gave the new service, created by law only on 1 April 1913, its first experience of flying with a field army.

Outcome Bulgaria sued for peace; the Treaty of Bucharest was signed in August 1913.

Figures from the Romanian-language Wikipedia only; not confirmed on roaf.ro.

Flying for

Romanian military aeronautics

Where

Bulgaria

Alongside

Serbia and Greece

Against

Bulgaria

Aircraft

Blériot and Farman types

Losses

Not found in the sources checked.

Sources

Wikipedia (Romanian)

Reconnaissance, artillery spotting, bombing and fighter defence alongside French and Russian units.

Romania entered the war in August 1916 with a small air arm and depended on France for aircraft and instructors. The official balance sheet gives the scale of what followed: 8,160 hours flown, 560 air combats, 62 tonnes of bombs, 6,981 aerial photographs, 703 artillery adjustments for Romanian and Russian guns, 80 liaison and six special missions, and 28 pilots and observers killed. Anti-aircraft gunners fired 16,500 shells and brought down 11 aircraft. English Wikipedia credits the Romanian air corps with 106–146 enemy aircraft shot down and names Dumitru Bădulescu, with eight victories, among its aces. The range reflects the difficulty of matching Romanian claims with German and Austro-Hungarian records.

Outcome Romania was knocked out in 1917–18 but ended the war on the winning side.

Victory totals are a range (106–146) from Wikipedia; the official page gives no figure for aircraft shot down by fighters.

Flying for

Romanian military aeronautics (Aeronautica Militară)

Where

Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia

Alongside

France, Russia and United Kingdom

Against

Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria

Aircraft

French and British types, 322 in all per Wikipedia

Sorties

8,160 flying hours, 560 air combats, 703 artillery shoots and 80 liaison missions, per the air force’s balance sheet.

Losses

28 killed28 pilots and observers killed, per the official balance sheet. Aircraft losses were not given.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF · Wikipedia

Fought alongside the Luftwaffe against the Soviet Union: fighter cover, bombing, reconnaissance and close support.

On 22 June 1941 the air force had 50 squadrons and 621 aircraft; the Combat Air Group sent to the front had 253 aircraft, 205 of them serviceable, and 208 crews, according to the official history, which also counts 1,066 pilots among 1,947 flying personnel. Romanian squadrons covered the recapture of Bessarabia and Bukovina and the long siege of Odessa, and by the end of September 1942 there were 26 Romanian squadrons in the Stalingrad and Don bend area. English Wikipedia credits the service with about 2,000 air victories between 1941 and 1944, and its leading aces — Captain Prince Constantin Cantacuzino with 69 and Captain Alexandru Șerbănescu with 55 — are still honoured in the names of the 57th and 95th Air Bases. These were claims, and the Soviet side kept its own count.

Outcome The Romanian armies were destroyed at Stalingrad in November 1942; by 1944 the front was back on Romanian soil.

The 2,000 victories and individual scores are claims reported by Wikipedia; Romanian losses on the Eastern Front were not found as a consolidated official figure.

Flying for

Royal Romanian Air Force (Aeronautica Regală Română)

Where

Bessarabia, Bukovina, Odessa, Crimea, Stalingrad and the Don bend

Alongside

Germany

Against

Soviet Union

Aircraft

IAR 80/81, Bf 109, He 112, Hurricane, PZL P.11/P.24, JRS-79B, Blenheim, IAR 37/38/39

Sorties

Not totalled on the official pages checked.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF · Wikipedia · Wikipedia · RoAF · RoAF

Intercepted American and British bombers attacking the oil refineries and the capital.

Romania’s oil was the prize, and the air force spent its hardest months defending it. On 1 August 1943 IAR 80s met the low-level B-24 Liberator raid on the Ploiești refineries, their first encounter with American heavy bombers. From April 1944 the US Fifteenth Air Force and RAF bombers returned repeatedly, and on 10 June 1944 IAR 80 pilots fought a large formation of P-38 Lightnings that had come to dive-bomb the refineries, claiming 24 victories according to Wikipedia. The IAR 80 was a good interceptor for its time — the air force’s own history ranks it fourth in the world for speed when it appeared — but by 1944 it was outclassed by American escort fighters.

Outcome The raids continued until August 1944 and badly cut Romanian oil output.

The 24 claims of 10 June 1944 are Wikipedia’s; American losses and Romanian losses for the campaign were not confirmed.

Flying for

Royal Romanian Air Force

Where

Ploiești oilfields and Bucharest

Alongside

Germany

Against

United States and United Kingdom

Aircraft

IAR 80/81, Bf 109G

Losses

Not found in the sources checked.

Sources

Wikipedia · RoAF · Wikipedia

Fought German and Hungarian forces with the Soviet air forces after Romania changed sides.

The coup of 23 August 1944 turned the air force against its former ally overnight. German aircraft attacked Bucharest, and Romanian fighters took them on: one Wikipedia account credits them with 22 German aircraft shot down, including three Me 323 Gigant transports, and five destroyed on the ground, for four Romanian aircraft lost in the air and 30 on the ground; another passage gives 59 German aircraft destroyed between 24 and 31 August. The service then flew for the Soviet fronts. In Hungary 15 squadrons with 174 aircraft flew 612 missions and 805 sorties and lost 13 aircraft; in Czechoslovakia the air corps flew 2,578 missions and 4,981 sorties, dropped 946 tonnes of bombs, claimed two air victories and lost 65 aircraft and 39 men, according to the official history. The last Romanian victory, per Wikipedia, was a Bf 109K-4 shot down by Adjutant Constantin Nicoară on 25 February 1945.

Outcome The war in Europe ended on 12 May 1945 for the Romanian air corps in Czechoslovakia.

German losses in the first week are given as 22 or 59 in different passages of Wikipedia; the whole-campaign claim of 126 enemy aircraft is Wikipedia’s.

Flying for

Royal Romanian Air Force

Where

Bucharest, Transylvania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia

Alongside

Soviet Union

Against

Germany and Hungary

Aircraft

IAR 80/81, Bf 109G, JRS-79B

Sorties

805 sorties in Hungary (8 October–20 December 1944) and 4,981 in Czechoslovakia (21 December 1944–12 May 1945), per the official history.

Losses

176 aircraftAbout 176 aircraft lost, mostly in accidents, per Wikipedia. The official history counts 13 aircraft and 11 airmen lost in Hungary and 65 aircraft and 39 killed in Czechoslovakia.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF · Wikipedia · Wikipedia

Helicopter transport and support for the EU stabilisation force; the first air force deployment to a theatre of operations since 1945.

The air force calls ALTHEA 2005 its first mission in a theatre of operations since the Second World War. Detachments Alpha and Bravo, with IAR 330 SOCAT helicopters from the 90th Airlift Base at Otopeni, flew more than 600 missions and 1,200 hours in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the European Union force that had taken over from NATO on 2 December 2004. Twenty years later Romania returned: from January 2025 the Dacian Pumas detachment, four IAR 330 L-RM and M helicopters, flies from Butmir near Sarajevo, alongside 36 Romanian personnel already in the mission.

Outcome Continuing: four IAR 330s of the Dacian Pumas detachment at Butmir from January 2025.

No combat was involved.

Flying for

Romanian Air Force

Where

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Alongside

European Union

Aircraft

IAR 330 SOCAT, IAR 330 L-RM, IAR 330 M

Sorties

600Over 600 missions and 1,200 flying hours by the 2005 detachments, per the air force.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNone reported.

Sources

RoAF

Lead nation running Kabul International Airport for NATO’s ISAF for four months.

In April 2006 Romania took over as lead nation at Kabul International Airport for four months, with a detachment commanded by Adrian Marinescu. Romanian airmen ran daily air operations, weather forecasting, cargo and passenger handling and logistics for ISAF’s main air hub. The 57th Air Base also records personnel sent to ISAF. It was not a flying mission, but it was the air force’s first NATO command responsibility in a war zone.

Outcome Handed over after four months.

Personnel numbers were not given on the official page.

Flying for

Romanian Air Force

Where

Kabul, Afghanistan

Alongside

NATO

Against

Taliban

Sorties

Not applicable: an airfield-management mission.

Losses

0 aircraftNone reported on the official page.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF

Helicopter transport and medical evacuation for the UN stabilisation mission.

From October 2019 to October 2020 the air force sent 120 personnel and four IAR 330 L-RM Pumas, the “Carpathian Pumas”, to Gao for the UN mission in Mali. Over an area the air force compares with the size of Romania, the helicopters flew more than 380 missions, including 17 medical evacuations, and about 1,250 hours, more than 200 of them at night, in heat, dust and with little infrastructure.

Outcome Completed in October 2020.

The official page calls them combat missions; no engagements are described.

Flying for

Romanian Air Force

Where

Gao, Mali

Alongside

United Nations

Aircraft

IAR 330 L-RM

Sorties

380Over 380 missions, 17 of them medical evacuations, and about 1,250 flying hours, over 200 at night.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNone reported.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF

Guards the airspace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on four-month NATO rotations.

Romania first flew Baltic Air Policing in the second half of 2007 with four MiG-21 LanceRs at Šiauliai, three shifts of two pilots and eight technicians, and at least eight flights a week. The F-16 took over in 2023, with four aircraft and about 100 people at Šiauliai and Ämari, and Romania returned in 2025 and in 2026, when the Carpathian Vipers detachment deployed six F-16s. On 19 May 2026, at about 11:00, a Romanian F-16 scrambled on the order of CAOC Uedem destroyed a drone over Estonian airspace with an air-to-air missile. The ministry did not identify the drone. Wikipedia, citing Estonian officials via Reuters and Delfi, says it was a Ukrainian drone that had strayed into Estonia under heavy Russian electronic warfare and was downed to limit the risk to civilians; that attribution was not confirmed on a Romanian page.

Outcome Continuing; on 19 May 2026 a Romanian F-16 shot down a drone over Estonia.

The drone’s origin is attributed only by Wikipedia and press reports it cites; the Romanian ministry called it simply a drone.

Flying for

Romanian Air Force

Where

Baltic states

Alongside

NATO

Aircraft

MiG-21 LanceR C, F-16AM/BM

Sorties

At least eight flights a week in 2007; later totals not published.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNone.

Sources

RoAF · RoAF · RoAF · RoAF · MApN · Wikipedia

Tracks and, since July 2026, shoots down drones that stray into Romanian airspace from Russian strikes on Ukraine.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube brought drones over Romania, and the ministry now reports each incident. On 24 July 2026 a drone detected about 20 km east of Sulina at 09:39 was tracked by Romanian F-16s and Italian Eurofighters and shot down with a missile by an F-16 from the 86th Air Base at 11:02 over an uninhabited area near Padina, Buzău. On 25 July two F-16s on patrol downed a second near the border, and on 26 July an F-16 downed a third at 10:13, 12 km north-east of Sulina, inside Romania’s territorial waters. On 20 August two F-16s were sent to a small maritime drone about 80 nautical miles east of Constanța near the Neptun Alpha platform; one hit it with its cannon and navy divers neutralised it. Not every drone is engaged: that night another crashed near Grindu while Spanish F/A-18s watched, and on 29 September an IAR 330 SOCAT searched a crater near Gropeni, Brăila.

Outcome Continuing: three drones shot down on 24–26 July 2026 and a maritime drone hit on 20 August 2026.

The ministry did not name the drones’ origin in the releases checked; Wikipedia identifies the 24 July drone as a Shahed (Geran-2). The 2 March 2022 loss of a MiG-21 LanceR and an IAR 330 near Cogealac happened during an air patrol after the invasion but was not a combat loss.

Flying for

Romanian Air Force

Where

Dobruja, the Danube delta, Buzău and the Black Sea

Alongside

NATO

Aircraft

F-16AM/BM, IAR 330 SOCAT

Sorties

Not totalled.

Losses

0 aircraft · 0 killedNo Romanian losses in the drone incidents.

Sources

MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · MApN · Wikipedia