Designed by Elie Carafoli for the Romanian Air Force, the IAR 15 was a lightly armed low-wing cantilever monoplane with a radial engine, fixed undercarriage and open cockpit.

The sustained efforts of Elie Carafoli and his team paid dividends when the first order for IAR 14 was finally placed.

The fuselage was a steel tube structure covered with dural forward of the cockpit and fabric aft.

The wings were rounded and shortened to 11.00 m, giving 19.00 m2 total area, and were built around two dural spars with a mixture of wood and metal ribs.

The undercarriage had a wide track, with vertical wire braced and faired legs carrying spatted main wheels.

Papana, was a good match for other monoplane fighter types of its time, such as the Dewoitine D.500 of L'Armée de l'Air, the Boeing P-26 "Peashooter" of the U.S. Army Air Corps or the Polikarpov I-16 of the Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily.