During the winter of 1916, Dumitru Badulescu attended the Air Observer School at Barlad, which he graduated on the 12th of January 1917. Then, he was assigned to the new F6 recon squadron stationed at Racaciuni, but initially flew with the F2 as the F6 was still not ready. On the 28th of January 1917, he flew a bold mission far behind the enemy lines where he bombed the Union factory. From the 23rd of March Badulescu joined the F6 at Garbovanul airfield. There he built a device for wireless telegraphy which proved invaluable for artillery control missions. In this period he flew almost daily over the front area, bringing back valuable informations, until some bureaucrat confined him to administative duties in May. But Badulescu was not the man to be put behind a desk : he protested and eventually returned to his squadron. He got his next kill on the 27th of June 1917, when the Farman F40 crewed by lieutenant pilot Petre Ioanin and observer Dumitru Badulescu was attacked by a Hansa Brandenburg. In his report Badulescu wrote : "The fighting was going on for about 10 minutes when the enemy plane, badly damaged, fell in the Soveja area. Our crew earned the congratulations of the front commander... ". The next day he bombed the German positions in the Gaurile area and managed to photograph the enemy AA artillery batteries near the village of Campurile.

More and more missions followed. On the 1st of August 1917, Badulescu and Ioanin were flying again in the Panciu area, where they spotted a German reconnaissace balloon, which they attacked and destroyed. Badulescu's score now stood at three air victories. Eight days later, Badulescu was on another reconnaissance mission with the French seargeant de Triquerville. Their Farman F40 was escorted by the Nieuport of lieutenant Gheorghe Mihailescu, who intervened when the F40 was jumped by an Austro-Hungarian airplane and managed to shoot it down in flames. Badulescu watched through his binocular as the enemy aircraft crash-landed and saw the observer struggling to break free of the burning wreckage. He signaled his pilot to land as close as possible to the Austro-Hungarian, got out of the cockpit and pulled out the enemy observer ( lieutenant Franscisc Schlarbaum ) and the body of the pilot. The German officer was taken to the hospital where the doctors operated him and saved his legs. Schlarbaum and Badulescu remained good friends for the rest of their lives. On the 15th of August, Badulescu's plane came again under attack, but he defended well and shot down the enemy plane near the town of Falticeni, achieving his fourth victory. A few days later he flew a dangerous infantry support mission, strafing enemy troops in the Marasti area in spite of bad weather.

Badulescu's last victory came on the 21st of September 1917. In that morning he had been ordered to take pictures of the Tazlau Valley. At some point, his plane was attacked by a German plane and his machine gun jammed. He didn't give up however ; the pilot entered a short dive to lose the oponent for a moment while Badulescu struggled to unjamm the machine gun. When he succeeded, the Romanian F40 returned to battle and Badulescu managed to put a long burst into the German aircraft, which crashed in the Romanian lines, where the crew was taken prisoner. Thus he became an ace, with 5 confirmed kills.

Badulescu was awarded the "Coroana Romaniei" ( "Romania's Crown ), "Steaua Romaniei cu spade" ( "Romania's star with swords" ) and the Czech award "White Lion" for his deeds. Due to conflicts with some of his superiors he left the Aviation Corps and transfered to the first Romanian armored unit in 1921. He would eventually return to aviation in 1931 and served his country during World War Two as well. After the war he was fired from the army by the communists and "rewarded" with 2 years and 8 months of hard labour for the "crime" of being an officer of the royalist army. Dumitru Badulescu passed away on the 26th of March 1978.