In 1922, Petro Krasilnikov graduated from the working faculty of the St. Petersburg University of Communications Engineers and was sent to the Main Department of Vocational Education of Ukraine (Kharkiv) to enter the 1st year of the Kharkiv Institute of Technology. He combined his studies at the institute with work as a technician, engineer, and then chief engineer of the locomotive management department of Donetsk Railways in Kharkiv.

Krasilnikov graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Technology on February 27, 1930. Success in studies allowed him to be enrolled as an assistant at the Department of Materials Resistance at KhAI. In January 1932, he was assigned to organize the materials technology laboratory of the aircraft engineering faculty and head the department with the same name. In June of the same year, he was also appointed the head of the aircraft production department, and then from June 9, 1932 to January 9, 1936 - the director of the institute. Under the leadership of Krasilnikov, the construction of the main building of the Khai was completed, ten particularly important research topics were approved in the Main Directorate of the Aviation Industry, as well as the first Statute of the institute, according to which the institute was subordinated to the Main Directorate of Educational Institutions of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR.

Peter Krasilnikov had to manage the institute in a difficult time, when the capital was transferred from Kharkiv to Kyiv. In the power structures of Ukraine, there was a plan to liquidate the Khai. Officials explained this by the absence of an aircraft design bureau and an aircraft engine plant in Kharkiv. Petro Krasilnikov literally saved Khai Kharkiv, justifying the need to train aviation specialists in Kharkiv with the availability of invaluable teaching staff at the institute. This includes aerodynamicist Academician Proskura, aircraft designer, chief designer of the Kharkiv Aviation Plant Kalinin, aircraft designer of the world-famous KHAI Neman aircraft at the aircraft engineering faculty, as well as engine specialists - professors Tsvetkov, Zubkovsky, Kostyukov, Dashkevich and others. Until now, the institute has already graduated 85 aviation engineers at the motor engineering faculty. Moreover, after the completion of the construction of the main buildings and buildings, the director began to pay more attention to the development of scientific research. In 1934, under the leadership of engineers Lazarev and Krol, students of the aircraft engineering faculty created the AVIAVNITO-3 glider, in the same year Benning built the original tailless aircraft KHAI-4. In 1933, engineer Lyulka started working at the Department of Aircraft Engines - the founder of a new direction in the field of engine construction. He and a group of engineers developed the project of the first turbojet engine in the USSR and later headed the Salyut Military Academy in the post-war years as its General Designer.

And if the "perpetuum mobile" is just a beautiful metaphor, which contained the eternal hope of mankind to master the secrets of existence and create miracles of technology, then we can say that this hope was largely justified thanks to the hard work of such pioneers as Petro Krasilnikov.