Kalinin's closest collaborators included Dmitri Tomashevich, Alexey Nikolaevich Grazianski and AT Rudenko.

The first designs had been drawn by Kalinin as early as 1923, when the Ukrainian airline Ukrvozdukhput had demanded a cheap, robust and easy to maintain aircraft, after the opening of the first regular flight from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod.

The fuselage consisted of a tubular steel frame with aluminium sheet covering to the rear of the cabin and fabric covering the rear fuselage, constructed was carried out by RVZ-6 (RVZ - Remvozdhukozavod - factory) at Kiev.

After the first flight, on 20 April 1925,[1] factory testing took place over the Summer, and in September 1925 the K-1 carried out state acceptance trials at Moscow, reaching a speed of 191 km/h (119 mph; 103 kn) with full load at 3,000 m (9,800 ft).

The type was mainly used as an airliner, later as an air ambulance and also as an agricultural aircraft, as it was able to carry 400 kg (880 lb) of chemicals.