by Academician Yevgeny KABLOV, Director General of the All-Russia Research Institute of Aviation Materials In June 1932 the All-Union (today the All-Russia) Institute of Aviation Materials (Russian abbreviation VIAM) was founded by order of the USSR People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry. In March 1994 by regulation of the Russian Federation government it was given the status of a State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation. Today, as decades ago, the research work of the major materials science enterprise in our country in many ways determines the appearance of products of national aerospace and nuclear technology and also finds application in mechanical and power engineering, construction, transport and medical technology. All-Russia Institute of Aviation Materials. стр. 36 "People need science. A country, which does not develop it, inevitably becomes a colony." Frederic Joliot-Curie Today All-Russia Institute of Aviation Materials marks its 80th anniversary. The date is impressive. The point is not its long life but what kind of years they were and what results were achieved. For the country, for aviation and for the branch science. Back in 1932, the institute researchers headed by professor Georgi Akimov (Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1939), developed and introduced into the aircraft industry the first national high-strength steel chromansil, which made it possible to get rid of import deliveries of molybdenum and nickel. Five years later they created aircraft armor, which saved life of thousands of pilots, and in 1940--high-strength wood composite, namely, phenol-impregnated modified wood. By the way, the Il-2 strike-fighter or "flying tank", the most mass in the history of aviation (more than 36,000 units), was manufactured using these two materials. It became possible to preserve many combat aircraft owing to soft fireproof fiber fuel tanks developed and suggested in 1 ... Читать далее