The life of pilot Konstantin Arceulov was full of both ups and downs, both literally and figuratively. He entered history not only as a hero of World War I but also as the first pilot to successfully exit a deadly spin. But let's take it step by step. Konstantin was born in 1891 and was the grandson of the artist Aivazovsky on his mother's side. In his youth, he dreamed of becoming a sailor, but due to health issues, he was expelled from the Naval Corps. It was then that Arceulov turned his attention to the sky. At that time, war was underway, and after graduating from flight school, he went to the front.

At first, he flew reconnaissance planes, and then he joined a fighter squadron. Konstantin had 18 successful battles and once shot down an Albatros C-III. However, the wounded German pilot managed to land the plane. Later, Russian mechanics repaired it, and Arceulov devised a clever plan: disguised as a German, he would fly this plane into enemy territory for reconnaissance. However, things did not always go smoothly; our anti-aircraft gunners mistook him for the enemy and opened fire a couple of times.

Arceulov's main victory came in the autumn of 1916 when he managed to handle a spin. At the beginning of the 20th century, the physics of this phenomenon was still poorly understood. Pilot Chervinsky, who miraculously survived a spin crash, recalled: "The controls were ineffective. The plane was spinning nose down, and attempts to pull it out only intensified the spin." Konstantin figured out that the plane was losing control due to lateral and downward air strikes, and he decided that instead of raising the nose, he needed to lower it even more to get into the airflow. In practice, his theory proved correct. Exiting a spin later became a mandatory part of pilot training.

After the October Revolution, Arceulov worked at the Higher School of Red Army Aviation, where one of his students was Valery Chkalov. In 1933, he was arrested on false charges, and only in 1947 was he allowed to return to Moscow. Subsequently, he illustrated airplanes for children's publications.