Traian Vuia was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer known for his early contributions to aircraft design. He is most notably recognized for designing, building, and testing the first tractor monoplane. His work demonstrated that a flying machine could achieve lift by running on wheels along an ordinary road.
Vuia is credited with performing a powered hop of 11 meters (36 feet) on March 18, 1906, and he later claimed to have achieved a hop of 24 meters (79 feet). While his inventions did not achieve sustained flight, they significantly influenced Louis Blériot in the design of monoplanes. In addition to his work with fixed-wing aircraft, Vuia also designed helicopters.