Kelly Turner seemed to think that controllable-pitch propellers were no good in general, and to suspect that the one I was trying to sell was probably the least useful of them all. If I had wasted my company’s money chasing a will-o’-the-wisp, he had no intention of sending any of Uncle Sam’s hard earned cash on a wild-goose chase to try to bail me out of my business mistakes. “Spuds” did not confine his opinions to me in a confidential chat, but took pains to broadcast them all through the corridors of BUAERO in a loud stentorian voice. Meanwhile, after taking over the Sikorsky job, I had felt the need of a new assistant in Hamilton-Standard and had learned through George Wheat, our public relations counsel, that Raycroft Walsh, a former major in the Air Corps who had resigned to go into business, might be interested. Ray had had an active Army career and, during the Mitchell controversy, had served in the Office of the Chief of Air Corps, Maj. Gen. Mason M. Patrick, as Finance Officer where he had performed some of the functions I had performed for Admiral Moffett. I liked him the moment I met him, and immediately recommended that he be brought into the company. When Ray took the new propeller to the Army, he encountered a similar lack of interest. Even though he carried his case to the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, Mr. F. Trubee Davison, and finally to his friend Pat Hurley, Secretary of War, stressing the fact that refusal to help develop the new propeller would prove disastrous to the Army and fatal to Hamilton-Standard, he made no more progress than had I with my friend “Spuds” Turner. It was a kind providence which, taking us by the hand, led us out to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a new milepost in history. For prior to the crisis in the affairs of Hamilton-Standard, United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, having in mind the need for building new transport aircraft designed to carry passengers and mail on a profitable basis, had initiated a joint airplane development headed up by Boeing. Based upon the performance of the Boeing “Monomail,” a single-engined low-wing monoplane itself partly derived from the earlier work of Jack Northrup, Boeing had taken in hand its new ten-passenger, twin-engined, low-wing monoplane to be called the “Boeing 247.” Designed around a new Pratt and Whitney Wasp engine and equipped with Hamilton-Standard propellers, it was intended as a replacement for all other assorted models in use on the line. Boeing, confident of its engineering ability, had released for production a full order of some sixty airplanes without first testing out a prototype. This procedure, if successful, would put the airplane company far ahead of any competitor and would give the transport company a big jump on other airlines such as it had earned by creating the earlier model, 40-B.