This pilot was the first in Russia to learn how to recover an aircraft from a spin

Entering a spin poses a serious threat to modern aircraft, but, in the early days of aviation at the beginning of the 20th century, this danger was many times greater. Many pilots racked their brains trying to solve this problem, yet only a handful dared to take to the skies and intentionally enter a spin for the sake of experimentation. Australian pilot Harry Hawker was the first in the world to do so in Summer 1914; the second was Russian pilot Konstantin Artseulov.

Artseulov’s grandfather was famous marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky and his father was a shipbuilder, also named Konstantin Artseulov. It was assumed that his life would be tied to the sea, but weak lungs dashed those plans. Instead, the young man turned his interest toward the sky and trained to become a pilot. Following the outbreak of World War I, he served for a time in the cavalry, before transitioning to become a military pilot.

In 1916, Artseulov set out to solve the problem of the spin, a phenomenon that had already claimed the lives of many of his comrades. He not only devised his own method for regaining control of an unmanageable aircraft, but also tested it himself. And, on September 24 of that year, he took a ‘Nieuport’ 21 fighter plane up to an altitude of 2,000 meters and intentionally put it into a spin.

"Naturally, the experience of entering a spin for the first time was not particularly pleasant. As soon as I confirmed that it was, indeed, a spin, I immediately applied the techniques I had devised to recover the aircraft: I pushed the control stick forward and applied firm pressure to the rudder pedal opposite the direction of the spin. I felt air pressure return to the control surfaces – and the aircraft’s rotation stopped," Artseulov later recalled. He ended up performing his maneuver twice that day.

Artseulov’s method was incorporated into the training program for Russian pilots, many of whom successfully employed it in combat. They would simulate the downing of their own planes, then gain altitude and suddenly attack an enemy who was already celebrating victory.