Vladimir Vetchinkin

Who was Vladimir Vetchinkin?

Vladimir Petrovich Vetchinkin was a Soviet scientist in the field of aerodynamics, aeronautics, and wind energy, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Honored Science Worker of the RSFSR.

Vladimir Petrovich was born in Kutno, the son of a military officer. Vetchinkin graduated from Moscow Higher Technical School in 1915, the favorite student of Nikolai Zhukovsky and generally viewed as his successor. In 1913, they had created a vortex-sheet theory of aircraft propellers. In 1916, Vetchinkin and Zhukovsky created the aviation calculation and test bureau in the wind-tunnel laboratory of the Moscow Higher Technical school, and in 1918 he helped found the Zhukovsky Central Institute of Aerodynamics. He became a professor at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy in 1923.

In 1914, Vetchinkin began working with Anatoly Georgievich Ufimtsev on high performance windmills for electric power generation. Zhukovsky created a new division of wind motors in TsAGI to support this effort. They built an 8 kilowatt experimental wind generator in Kursk in 1929. To store energy during lulls in the wind, it used a 360 kilogram flywheel contained in a vacuum chamber.