The ‘Aviation and Aerospace Engineering’ department trains highly qualified and responsible academics in the high-tech fields of ‘Aviation and Aerospace ‘ and ‘Automotive Engineering’. We teach theoretical principles and their application in engineering practice. Practice is part of teaching: small exercise groups, many internships in very well-equipped laboratories, extensive opportunities for independent participation in research and industrial projects, own flight experience on our aircraft and simulators, in the satellite ground station or in the crash laboratory.

The department maintains a comprehensive international exchange programme in training towards the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, both within Europe and beyond. The main partner universities are the RMIT in Melbourne, Universiti Putra Malaysia and the universities in Bologna, Madrid and Paris. In addition to the possibility of completing a semester abroad, the department also offers English-language bachelor's modules. Master´s degree programmes are taught in English and have an international student body.

The department is characterised by diversity and the facilities of the 35 laboratories as well as the aircraft and simulator fleet with the flying laboratory for use in research and instruction. The Competence Centre for Mobility (KMAC) with new lecture halls, canteens and laboratories will go into operation as a major infrastructure project in 2022; A new test bench building is also being built. Current issues in automotive engineering can be explored there, among other things, with the use of emissions-measuring equipment and battery test benches in cooperation with other specialist disciplines.

FH Aachen is the only university in North Rhine-Westphalia with teaching and research expertise in the two high-tech fields of Aviation and Aerospace Technology and Automotive Technology. Here, synergies are systematically investigated and used. The department is home to the research Institute ECSM ‘European Center for Sustainable Mobility’, an NRW competence platform on ‘Synergetic Automotive/Aerospace Engineering’, a research training group and a doctoral group with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Melbourne, Australia. This is where 24% of doctoral students at Aachen University of Applied Sciences do their PhDs.

The university and the department support the implementation of start-up ideas through internal and external framework programmes. Examples of such programmes are: Career Service, Start-Up, TRACE, AC², AC.E, EXIST.

The department has its own fleet of engine-powered aircraft and gliders; this is used by students, among other things, as part of the summer school and Flight Measurement Week [Flugmesswoche]. Since September 2021, the department has owned two electric aircraft of the Pipistrel Velis Electro type and is investigating their use in pilot training. Several flight simulators and a satellite ground station, as well as vacuum and planetary simulation chambers, round off the laboratory infrastructure in aerospace engineering.