The Astra factory continued to make railway rolling stock, but it also produced 250 hp Martha-Benz aircraft engines.

[6] The senior specialists involved in aircraft construction at Astra included engineers Radu Onciul, Ștefan Urziceanu, Dumitru Barbieri, Stanislav Șeșefschi and Victor Fedorov.

The pilots Ion Sava and Petre Macavei carried out a non-stop flight from Arad to Bucharest, in only two and a half hours.

[2][6] Proto 1 was a biplane used as a school and training aircraft, designed by Major Ștefan Protopopescu in collaboration with engineers Dumitru Baziliu and Gheorghe Ticău.

Following the conclusions of Ioan Sava's crash, the original design was maintained, but as a safety measure, the structure of the wings was strengthened by increasing the section of the spars and adding another pair of interplane struts.

The prototype passed its tests successfully and although it met the requirements, the factory did not receive orders for serial production.