On March 20, 2020, the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), which has the status of a national research university, turns 90.
I visited MAI and saw a lot of interesting and unexpected things there.
More than 21 thousand students are currently studying at MAI. Of the 200 specialties they receive, only 70% are associated with aviation and space, and 30% are other, mainly technical, specialties.
MAI is now in second place in terms of the level of demand for graduates in the labor market among IT faculties. The average salary of an MAI graduate immediately after employment is 75,000 rubles, more than 80% of graduates work by specialty, MAI ranks 9th in the ranking of Russian universities, in which the richest studied businessmen.
But not only students study at MAI. The university has a school (MAI pre-university) and a children's technopark "Takeoff Trajectory".
The equipment of the technopark is impressive: there are machines, 3D printers, and good devices. Students build on Arduino and other platforms.
Their designs are not necessarily related to aircraft and drones. For example, these guys invented and are making an "air guitar" - a musical instrument shaped like a glove.
By the way, there is a drone school at MAI, where they teach piloting of unmanned aerial vehicles and issue the appropriate licenses.
New drones and other aircraft are also created here.
The large three-propeller drone is capable of lifting up to 19 kg of payload.
A vertical takeoff aircraft combines elements of an airplane, a helicopter and a drone. It takes off vertically (exactly in the position in which it stands in the photo), turns in the air and flies horizontally in airplane mode, before landing, turns around again, and sits down like copter.
MAI has two wind tunnels. The first is supersonic with a fan power of 5 Megawatts (!).
I even went inside this pipe.
The second, 300-kilowatt wind tunnel, is used much more often.
It is currently testing a model of a new agricultural aircraft.
And the girl controls the wind tunnel!
Unlike many other educational institutions, students at MAI receive not only theoretical knowledge and see the subject of their future work not only on a computer screen and in paper documentation. Here students are shown real airplanes and spaceships, and many of their nodes are cutaway.
To understand how a complex technique works, it is important to see it not only in pictures.
there are also aerobatic stands at MAI.
The stands are used not for training pilots, but for testing control systems and modeling the behavior of an aircraft in the air.
However, you can also "fly".
Moreover, you can "fly" not only by airplanes. One of the stands also has space programs that allow, for example, to master the docking of spaceships (I also tried to dock, but it turned out to be very difficult).
MAI is not only an educational, but also a research university. I visited laboratories for mathematical modeling and composite materials.
The dimensions of MAI are enormous. On its territory there are several dozen educational and laboratory buildings. The buildings are gradually being repaired and modernized. Somewhere the corridors are still painted with oil paint, somewhere they already look like this.
Gradually, the whole university will look modern.
However, the old is also being restored. This stained glass window is the same age as the institute.
According to the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute Mikhail Poghosyan, the new strategy of the university is not only to give knowledge, but also to involve students in solving real problems already at the stage of training.
I express my gratitude to the MAI staff for the opportunity to see the university from the inside.
© 2020, Alexey Nadezhin
The main topic of my blog is technology in human life. I write reviews, share experiences, talk about all sorts of interesting things. My second project - lamptest.ru. I test LED bulbs and help me figure out which ones are good and which are not.