This was the situation in the summer of 1937, when, with Chance Vought Aircraft just beginning to round out into an effective team, I was put out of commission by an automobile crack-up that took me out of active service for several months. Coming home after dark in a driving rain from a day of trout fishing at the East Haddam Fish and Game Club, some thirty miles from Hartford, I was smacked so hard by a speeding motorist that my new convertible was reduced to a heap of junk. Only through kind providence was I spared the same fate. Out of the hospital, I moved from Chance Vought over to the head office at Pratt and Whitney, to undertake a new program. Here I set up a small research department and, with a tight little organization, began collecting all the facts and many fancies, with a view to shaping a new course. As the brains of this organization I selected John Lee of Vought. The designer of the radical SB2U monoplane dive bomber, John had employed his scientific mind to the company’s great practical advantage. He would require at least a year to assemble a body of information that might prove of value in approaching our problem. The time had come for someone, free from administrative responsibilities, to make a considered estimate of the new situation out of which policy decisions might be reached. Of one thing we were sure: there is a definite limit to the number of design projects any one engineering department can handle. The sure way in which to break down even the best organization is to overload it. In order to get John Lee and his crew started on their study, I set for them the task of making a coldblooded analysis of the liquid-cooled air-cooled controversy. To this end they were to design, from the ground up, a series of single-seat fighters, each of which was to utilize each engine to best advantage. We were not interested in proving a case for either engine, but in ascertaining for ourselves, without prejudice, which engine was best suited to the job. We chose the single-seat fighter because this was the type in which the liquid-cooled appeared to best advantage. John Lee’s job was to design a whole family of fighters, orthodox or unconventional, and from this collection make a factual analysis that would resolve our problem for us. Meanwhile I would make the grand tour of the industry, calling on everyone who might have an idea or an opinion to contribute to our study. Out of such a tour we might gather a few valuable ideas, and hopefully indicate to our customers our own deep interest in their problems. I would approach the matter with an open mind, collect detailed notes of my interviews, and assemble them in such form as would best indicate the thinking of the whole industry on our problem.