Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy
In 1918 he graduated from the Saratov secondary school #2 and went to Moscow to study at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy, where he made friends with another prominent Russian aircraft designer Sergey Ilyushin. From 1926, he served as an engineer-mechanic to an aviation squadron in the Soviet Airforce, rising to the position of chief engineer at Aircraft Factory No. 39 in Kharkov.