The airfield was established in 1915. It was used by the
Romanian Air Corps to continue the training of pilots who graduated from the
Cotroceni Military Pilot School. In October 1919, a
Zeppelin-Staaken R.XIVa which crash landed near
Cristinești was brought to Pipera. The heavy bomber flew from Cristinești to the airfield with a stop in
Adjud. It was used to train bomber pilots for several years. In the interwar period, the airfield was used for civilian purposes as well. The first direct flight from
Paris to Bucharest was done by the French–Romanian airline company
CFRNA/CIDNA, with an airplane piloted by
Albert Louis Deullin, who landed at Pipera Airport in October 1921. During
World War II, Pipera Airport was the main military airport in the Bucharest area, with the headquarters of the
1st Fighter Flotilla located there. Some units of the
Royal Romanian Air Force units were flying
IAR 80 fighters (built in
Brașov), while a unit under the command of was flying
Messerschmitt Bf 109s from there. In the fall of 1940, Major
Gotthard Handrick and a group
German fighter pilots who had participated in the
Battle of Britain were sent by
Adolf Hitler to help train the Romanian pilots at this airbase. After
Romania entered the war on the side of the
Axis powers, pilots based at the Pipera airfield participated in the battles on the
Eastern Front, including the
Siege of Odessa and the
Battle of Stalingrad. Until June 1942, the airport was used as an air base for the fighter units protecting Bucharest and Ploiești with various
Luftwaffe units stationed there as well. By 1944, the airport infrastructure consisted of 13 hangars with adjacent workshops, eight of which featured
paved aprons. The airport also had two
dispersal areas with eight medium and ten small open blast bays. The airport was dismantled in 1958. On its former site, the Aviation Museum of Bucharest was inaugurated on 18 March 2006. Some of the old
hangars have been incorporated into the museum, while the runway has been replaced by the
Dimitrie Pompeiu Road and an office building. A local police station is also located on the same grounds. ==Gallery==