Evgeniy Georgievich Pepelyaev was born in the town of Bodaybo in the Irkutsk region, the centre of the famous Lena gold-mines, on 18 March 1918. Evgeniy's father, Georgiy Georgievich Pepelyaev, was a worker who travelled from one place to another and assembled and repaired various gold mining hardware: diesel engines, steam-boilers, generators, etc. In 1928 the Pepelyaevs left Bodaybo and stayed at various places - in Novosibirsk, Chuvashia, and the Petropavlovskand the Semipalatinsk regions - over a period of few years. Evgeniy had to study in a new school almost each academic year. In 1934 he entered the Omsk Railway Construction Technical School, but he did not graduate from it, as in 1935 his elder brother Konstantin, an instructor in the 8th Military Pilots School, took Evgeniy, who had been dreaming of becoming a pilot since childhood, with him to Odessa. When in Odessa, Evgeniy worked at aircraft repair shops and simultaneously started attending a flying club. He entered the Odessa Military Pilots School under special recruitment in August 1936. In 1937 cadet Pepelyaev was among the first to complete the flight training program on the U-2 aircraft, and in January 1938 he started mastering the 1-16 fighter powered by the M-25 engine. By November 1938 he had mastered take-off and landing on the 1-16, basic aerobatics, and some aerobatics stunts such as loop, wingover, climbing turn, and spin. He had also learned certain air combat manoeuvres and practised firing at ground targets.
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