The School of Aerospace Engineering was established in March 2015. Its establishment is an important measure of Guizhou Institute of Technology to proactively meet the development needs of Guizhou's military enterprises under the background of the in-depth development of the national defense science and technology industry. Moreover, it proactively takes serving the country and Guizhou’s aerospace industry as one of its characteristics, and implements the national development strategy, which fills the gap in Guizhou's aerospace undergraduate education. In August 2016, the School and AVIC Guizhou Aircraft Co., Ltd. started a new journey of comprehensive school-enterprise co-construction, and officially appointed Hu Jianxing, who was the deputy general manager of the company and chief designer of key models, as honorary dean, which takes a substantial step towards the integration of industry and education.
The School has a faculty of 27 members, including 24 full-time teachers, among whom there are three professors and eight associate professors. Fourteen teachers hold doctoral degree and ten hold master degree, accounting for 84.6% of the faculty. Moreover, two of them enjoy special government allowances from the State Council, one is the provincial management expert of Guizhou, and three are visiting scholars of “Light of the West”. Furthermore, the School flexibly introduced a teaching team in the field of intelligent manufacturing from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to provide teaching resources guarantee for cultivating high-quality application-oriented talents.
At present, the school has two undergraduate majors in aerospace (aircraft manufacturing engineering and aircraft power engineering), with 444 full-time undergraduate students. In 2022, the aircraft manufacturing engineering major was approved by the Ministry of Education as a national first-class undergraduate major construction site. At the same year, it won the second prize of the Guizhou Province Teaching Achievement Award.
The school has the key discipline of “Aerospace Science and Technology” which shows the provincial-level characteristics and the discipline group of “Aerospace and Intelligent Manufacturing” that displays the school-level characteristics. It has been approved by the Ministry of Education for the talent training base project of Sino-foreign cultural exchange in the field of intelligent manufacturing and the Ministry of Education for the construction of practical conditions for collaborative education through industry-university cooperation. It has been approved by the Ministry of Education for the Sino-foreign cultural exchange talent training base project in the field of intelligent manufacturing and for the construction of practical conditions for industry-university cooperation and collaborative education. It has built the Guizhou UAV Emergency Disaster Reduction Informatization Engineering Research Center, the Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory of Thermal Management and Intelligent Manufacturing of Aero-engines, the school-level UAV Innovation and Entrepreneurship Laboratory, the Sheet Metal Forming Laboratory, the Aircraft Assembly and Debugging Virtual Simulation Laboratory, the Aero-engine Virtual Simulation Laboratory, the Wind Tunnel Laboratory, etc., which provides a platform for teaching, scientific research, and social services.
The school actively carries out external cooperation and exchanges, and selects outstanding students to participate in the National Aerospace College Summer Camp, the “Belt and Road” Aerospace Innovation Alliance Summer Camp, and the China International Aircraft Design Challenge Competition. Furthermore, the virtual simulation experiment of large aircraft component assembly completed in remote collaboration with Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics attracted the attention of the national education community at the 6th China MOOC Conference. Hosted by the school, the “Belt and Road Cup” College Student UAV Formation Flying Dance Creative Programming Competition of the College Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Alliance of the 7th China-ASEAN Education Exchange Week was reported on Guizhou TV and received social attention. In addition, the 6th National Fluid-Solid Interaction and Unsteady Fluid Mechanics Academic Conference, which was also hosted by the school, strengthened the exchanges and cooperation between the college and industry associations and other similar schools, greatly enhancing the college's industry influence.
Currently, the school has built a “one body, multiple wings” industry-education integration and school-enterprise community with AVIC Guizhou Aircraft Co., Ltd. as the main body, and Guizhou Liyang International Manufacturing Co., Ltd., AVIC Guizhou Aviation Engine Maintenance Co., Ltd., Guizhou General Aviation Co., Ltd., Liyang Aviation Town, Guizhou Yonghong Heat Exchange and Cooling Technology Co., Ltd., Guizhou Xin'an Aviation Machinery Co., Ltd., Guizhou Dadongfeng Machinery Co., Ltd., etc. as supplements. It emphasizes student development as the center, attaches importance to the cultivation of students' innovative and practical abilities, and aims to “strengthen responsibility, master technology, be good at management, emphasize practice, and seek innovation” to cultivate high-quality application-oriented talents in the aerospace field that meet the needs of local economic and social development.
The school’s graduates are widely welcomed by aerospace manufacturing companies and equipment manufacturing industries. In the past three years, the employment rate of graduates (at the end of the year) has reached more than 90%. There were 114 graduates in 2023, including 75 in aircraft manufacturing engineering and 39 in aircraft power engineering. As of December 20, 2023, 105 graduates were employed, with an employment rate of 92.11%. There were 158 graduates in 2024, including 111 in aircraft manufacturing engineering and 47 in aircraft power engineering. As of June 17, 2024, 113 graduates in 2024 were employed, with an employment rate of 71.52%. Graduates have been hired by AVIC Guizhou Aircraft Co., Ltd., Colorful Guizhou Airlines Co., Ltd., Guizhou Xin'an Aviation Machinery Co., Ltd., Guizhou Aerospace Xinli Technology Co., Ltd., Guizhou Aerospace Electric Co., Ltd., Guizhou Yonghong Heat Exchange and Cooling Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Airlines Co., Ltd., Guizhou Longfei Aviation Accessories Co., Ltd., Guizhou Hangfei Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Guizhou Dadongfeng Machinery Co., Ltd., Guiyang Xianfeng Machine Tool Co., Ltd., HNA Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. and other excellent companies in the industry.
