The story
Founding and vision
There was a task in the USSR – to prepare 435,000 engineers and technicians in five years (1930–1935) during the USSR industrialization period, while their number in 1929 was 66,000.
Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) was established on 20 March 1930 as Higher Aero-mechanical college (VAMU) by the order of Supreme Soviet of the National Economy in order to ensure training of qualified personnel for the aviation industry. The Aero-mechanical faculty of Bauman Moscow State Technical University formed the basis of the new university. On 29 August 1930, the university was renamed as Moscow Aviation Institute. In the beginning it had 3 departments, Aeronautical, Aircraft engines and Aerodynamics. On its tenth anniversary in 1940, the university had established itself as a premier aeronautical university with 38 departments, 22 laboratories and a Student design office and production facility.
The uniqueness of the MAI is that historically it was created to train specialists for almost all departments and teams in the Design Bureaus of the aviation industry.
World War II
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The students and faculty members were mobilized to work in aircraft workshops and design offices. Many students signed up to join the armed forces during the Battle of Moscow, many continued to work aircraft production facilities and armaments workshops.
The university was partly evacuated to Almaty, Kazakhstan under the leadership of Alexander Yakovlev. By 1942 the Moscow campus of MAI started functioning in parallel with the Almaty campus. It was in the workshops of MAI in Almaty, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the legendary rifle designer, worked on his AK-47 assault rifle.
By 1943, the university was completely relocated back to Moscow. Members of the university were involved in research & designing new combat aircraft and sub-systems, along with refining and redesigning existing aircraft, for the war effort.
In 1945 the institute was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Jet age & Space age
Although prototypes of the first jet aircraft were made as far back as 1910 by Henri Coandă, it was during World War II that significant developments were made.
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Arkhip Lyulka designed the first Two-stage centrifugal compressor Turbojet in 1938. Alexander Bereznyak a graduate of MAI, designed the first jet aircraft in the USSR, the Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 in 1942.
After the war, the university placed special emphasis on developing new technology required for developing jet aircraft and was quick to adapt to new technologies.
This was emphasised in May 1946, during the second Student technical conference, faculty members of the institute defended 6 post-doctoral theses and 14 Ph.Ds on various aspects regarding development of jet aircraft. On 26 April 1946, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9 became the first operational turbojet fighter in the USSR.
It was also in the same year the Faculty of Radio Electronics was established based on department of Radio-location, to assimilate newer technologies in the field of Radio location.
The era of helicopters began in USSR with two leading pioneers at MAI Boris Yuryev, inventor of Swashplate in helicopters and Bratukhin, they were awarded the state prize of the USSR in 1946. In 1952, department of helicopter design was established under the leadership of Prof. Boris Yuryev.
In 1955, the university celebrated its silver jubilee.
On 4 October 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite opening up Space for mankind, graduates from MAI were deeply involved in the space program from its inception under the leadership of Sergey Korolev, the legendary chief designer of head of the Soviet space program and Mikhail Tikhonravov chief designer of satellites Sputnik-3, Luna-1, Luna-3, Luna-4.
Cold War
During the Cold War, students, faculty members and graduates of the university were involved in cutting-edge research in the fields of Aeronautics, Missile development and armaments research. They were pivotal in keeping the USSR ahead in the arms race in close collaboration with the aerospace and defense industry and research organizations like TsAGI, National Institute of Aviation Technologies, VIAM, TsIAM, TsNII VVS, Gromov Flight Research Institute among others.
Key figures from the university during this era were Rostislav Belyakov chief designer of MIG-29, Myasishchev, Mikhail Yangel, Sergey Mikheev chief designer of Kamov helicopters, Marat Tishchenko of Mil helicopters, Mikhail Reshetnev and others.
In 1962, the university established the Student design office(ОСКБ — объединение СКБ факультетов и кафедр), which integrated different faculties and departments within the institute to develop aircraft prototypes in-house and to provide greater exposure to students in design and production work. The Design office functions today as the OKKBES-MAI http://oskbes.ru/english.html.
From Wikipedia’s article on Moscow Aviation Institute, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3