Editing Vladimir Komarov (section)

===Air Force Group One===
In September 1959, Komarov was promoted to engineer-captain and invited to participate in the selection process for cosmonaut candidate along with approximately 3,000 other pilots.<ref>Burgess and Hall, p. 54</ref> He was one of twenty candidates selected for "Air Force Group One"; he and the others reported to the newly formed TsPK ([[Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center]]) just outside [[Moscow]] for assignment on 13 March 1960.

Although eminently qualified, Komarov was not chosen in the top six candidates, because he did not meet the age, height, and weight restrictions specified by the Chief Designer of Russia's space program, [[Sergei Korolev]]. "If the criteria had been different," the cosmonaut trainer Mark Gallai noted in an interview, "Certainly Komarov, who was very intelligent, would have been in the group. He had Air Force Academy flight experience. He greatly influenced the design of the 'Vostok' and [the] 'Voskhod'."<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Harford | first1 = James | title = Korolev | publisher = John Wiley & Sons | year = 1997 | page = 165| isbn = 0-471-32721-2}}</ref> At age 32, Komarov was the second oldest of the pilots chosen; Korolev had specified a maximum age of 27. Only two members of the first group, [[Pavel Belyayev]] ([[Voskhod 2]]) and Komarov himself, were also graduates of the [[Soviet military academies|Soviet Air Force Academy]]. In addition, only Komarov had experience as a flight test engineer on new aircraft.<ref>Hall and Shayler, p. 109</ref>