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Factory No. 22
to be able to critically assess his proposed alternative before going into foolish
raptures about his own genius. Finally, when everything is already clear to the
inventor, when everything has been written and calculated, when the invention
has even gone before a panel of experts and there are no doubts as to its innovation
and advantages, that is when the most difficult stages begin: realization,
experimental modification, and introduction.Therein lies the fundamental difference
between the creative work of an inventor and engineer and that of a poet
or artist.
I referred to my proposed electric bomb release as “the electronic.” In place of
the complex electromechanical clockwork used for the selection of time intervals
during stick bombing, I devised an electronic time relay with a broad range for
regulating the initiation time. I also needed to think up a circuit to convert the
time relay to a pulse generator. In place of the highly complex mechanism used
for selecting the required bomb racks, I used the simple and inexpensive switch
used in an automatic phone switchboard.When everything, including a mercuryvapor
thyratron, was assembled and soldered together on a sheet of plywood, it
began to work.A factory military representative reported about my initiative to the
armaments department of the Air Force Directorate.
After explanations at Varvarka, where the Air Force Directorate headed by
Alksnis was located at the time, they sent me, with the appropriate reference, to the
building on Red Square that housed the Directorate of Military Inventions.A few
days later, Directorate Chief Glukhov sent for me and reported that Tukhachevskiy
himself had approved funding for the development and manufacture of experimental
prototypes of the bomb release system according to an agreement that the
Air Force Directorate was to conclude.
in august 1934,having endured the competitive examination, I finally became
a student at the V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MEI). For
material reasons, I did not want to quit work, and I began my studies in night
school without leaving production. MEI had split off from MVTU about three
years earlier and was scattered among various buildings in the area of Koroviy Brod
and Radio Street.The subway was still just being built. After 420 minutes on my
shift, I made the hour-and-a-half journey from Fili to MEI, satisfying my hunger
on the streetcars on the way.
Classes in the night school began at six o’clock and finished at ten o’clock. Each
student had already worked in industry for three to four years. From our personal
life experience, we were convinced of how important it was to gain systematic
knowledge in the fundamentals of science. It was precisely this desire to rise above
everyday mundane cares that made us listen attentively to lectures, not fall asleep
during seminars, and introduce improvements to our laboratory work. Our professors
and instructors understood that they were not dealing with school kids,
but rather with skilled workers, technicians, and designer-practitioners. A distinct
community of interests was established in the educational process. We would let
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