As the summer developed, two special projects helped bring our new outfits to a high degree of precision: the city of San Diego planned to dedicate Lindbergh Field, and the city of Los Angeles would be host to the national air races in dedication of Mines Field. This gave the staff an opportunity to keep the squadrons practicing their close formations, a drill that tended to bore them; they preferred the dive-and-zoom of practical combat exercises. But now, returning from the many operating areas Frank had established in the back country, they passed in review before the admiral’s critical eye, flying wing-and-tail in tight parade formations. Tommy Tomlinson, with the first section of his squadron, began practicing section acrobatics, putting on a rhythmic show of breathtaking formation loops, rolls, and dives. At the dedication of Lindbergh Field, the overcast lay so close to the surface that, save for fine air discipline, we should have had to call off our participation. Instead, we flew some four hundred fleet aircraft in a thrilling fly past, at low altitude, with the tails of the formations lost in the clouds. Later at the National Air Races in Los Angeles, Tommy’s Three Sea Hawks stopped the show with their precision acrobatics. The Army responded with their Three Musketeers. When one of their team was unfortunately killed in an accident, Charles Lindbergh, stepping into the lead position, gave the crowd a sample, not alone of his own flying, but also of the quality of his teamwork and personal leadership. It was in the National Air Races, too, that the air-cooled engine finally triumphed completely over liquid-cooled. A year earlier, Claire Egtvedt had come down from Seattle to get our ideas on the specifications for a new plane to replace his current production F3B. Primed by me, the admiral had given him the requirements for what had since become the first experimental single-seat fighter bomber, the XF4B. Flown by Tom Jeter in the free-for-all pursuit race, this airplane won handily, running away from the special souped-up liquid-cooled entries. Later in a special event promoted by Bill Boeing, a race to altitude from a standing start, Mort Seligman, in the XF4B, executed a triumphant loop over the T4M station ship cruising at 10,000 feet above the thronged grandstand, and dived back onto the field before the nearest competitor could climb to the target. Jim Fechet, Chief of the Army Air Service, followed Bill onto the field to get the Army’s first order in ahead of the Navy. In subsequent years this basic airplane served both Army and Navy, the one as P-12, the other as F4B, with variations to suit the special requirements of each.