It seemed that after I had taken the decision, away back there in BUAERO, that we would use the new metal propellers in place of the wooden ones, two companies had competed for the business—the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, of Milwaukee, and the Standard Steel Propeller Company, of Pittsburgh. In the middle had sat the Reed Propeller Company, owners of the patents taken out by Dr. Sylvanus Reed. These patents, covering metal propeller blades made of “light alloys, solid throughout the outer half of their length,” had been discounted by both Hamilton Aero and Standard Steel, who had declared them invalid. However, the new Curtiss-Wright Corporation had absorbed the Reed Company to put the power of Curtiss-Wright dollars behind the patents. Meanwhile, Tom Hamilton, of Hamilton Aero, and Harry Kraeling, of Standard Steel, fought their conflict on other grounds. To match Tom Hamilton’s propeller-design savvy, Harry Kraeling hired Frank Caldwell, the Army’s civilian propeller expert, away from the Army. Frank Caldwell had a few inventions himself and was one of the best informed men in the industry. Both companies sold “two-piece” propellers—that is, duralumin blades mounted in steel hubs that permitted blade-angle adjustment on the ground. The Reed Company held to single-piece, fixed-pitch props made of solid duralumin. It was one of these that had dumped me into the dirt at Anacostia, back in 1926, when a blade had broken off close to the hub. I still kept a section of that blade as a souvenir. Now after United Aircraft and Transport Corporation had acquired Hamilton Aero, of Milwaukee, Standard Steel, of Pittsburgh, had countered by recognizing the Reed patents and taking a license from Curtiss-Wright. Standard paid Curtiss royalties, and in exchange Curtiss agreed to sue all infringers of the patents—including Hamilton. Fred Rentschler, as president of United, had not relished a patent suit with Curtiss and had therefore bought up Standard Steel of Pittsburgh from its local stockholders. This had given him freedom from the threat of suit because he had acquired the license in the transaction, but it had opened up other problems. The two propeller companies had been so highly competitive, it now seemed unlikely that either Hamilton or Kraeling could consolidate the two outfits into a single company; they needed new and neutral management. Furthermore, since the consolidation had brought the two manufacturers into one group, the action had deprived the Army and Navy of their cherished competitive sources and had substituted instead a potential monopoly.