And so, while John Lee assembled a handful of selected assistants, I set out on my tour. At Bethpage, Long Island, I interviewed Roy Grumman and Jake Schwoble and visited their shops. Roy, the president of the company, was also its leading engineer—then a rather common situation in aviation—while Jake, a hard-hitting shopman, was more or less the business manager. Here was a competent pair surrounded by an able team, doing a smart job, as we in Vought so well knew through competing with them. At Seversky’s (now Republic’s) plant at Farmingdale, Long Island, I was impressed by the sharp contrast between the two Russians, Seversky and Sikorsky. Both were White Russian refugees, both had left their native land, where they were no longer welcome even to live, much less create airplanes, and both had found in free America a climate under which they could employ their talents. Alex P. de Seversky, ably supported by clever engineers led by Kartveli, was a power in the fighter field and, as an ardent advocate of air-cooled engines, had backed Pratt and Whitney exclusively. On arrival at the Naval Aircraft Factory, Philadelphia, I found many old friends and associates of my days in BUAERO. The factory, in compliance with some legislation that required them to produce a certain percentage of all production, as a so-called “yardstick to private industry,” had undertaken to manufacture Wright Whirlwind engines under license. The management had little sympathy with the idea—any such yardstick must be a rubber one—and what with interferences by local politicos and the usual complications inherent in government manufacture, the project had bogged down. At Glenn L. Martin’s plant down near Baltimore, I had a good visit with the old-timer sometimes described as “the dean of the airplane industry.” A conservative when it came to design, Glenn had pioneered in volume production processes, and on the financial side had taken numerous risks that proved intelligent. And for all his ups and downs, he had lost none of his zeal for commercial aviation, even though he had lost his shirt as had Sikorsky and Boeing, building Clippers for Pan American Airways. A visit to BUAERO brought recollections of exciting days under Admiral Moffett and emphasized his inimitable qualities. By now the Engine Section, having lost its sense of direction, had begun to waver in the air-cooled versus liquid-cooled conflict, and no longer wielded its old influence. From Washington’s hazy atmosphere I moved out to the clearer skies of the Pacific Northwest. At Boeing, Claire Egtvedt, though reduced by indifferent health to acting in an advisory capacity, still kept his unimpaired view of the fundamentals of aviation. His orderly, considered estimate of the engine problem was more than worth the trip west; besides, it was stimulating to yarn about the good old days.