Since that airplane would show to even greater advantage with the higher power of the Wasp, we now wangled a deal with Wright. We actually persuaded good-natured Charlie Lawrance to turn his pet airplane over to Chance Vought for the installation of a Pratt and Whitney Wasp with which Lt. C. C. Champion, who had now joined the Engine Section, was to take a shot at the world’s record for altitude. With the completion of Chance Vought’s own Corsair, we now had a brilliant two-seater that compared favorably in performance with the hottest fighters, and thus gave us a stable with which to make an assault on all the world’s records in their classes. The admiral, a highly competitive spirit with a keen appreciation of the value of world’s records and racing competition, now made participation in these events a major Bureau project. The names “Wasp” and “Corsair” had been selected by the Engine Section, in response to requests from Pratt and Whitney and Chance Vought. Little did we know at the time what distinction they would one day attain. The Wright Apache focused attention of other manufacturers on the characteristics of the Wasp; and Boeing, after testing an engine in a converted FB-1 fighter, immediately put a new one in the works to be called the “F2B.” Curtiss made a conversion of one of its single-seater Hawks, replacing the D-12 with a Wasp. The first Wasp engine to be flight tested was flown in a Curtiss Hawk and thus became a sort of monument to the reluctance Curtiss had shown by their failure to develop their own R-1454 engine. It also nearly became a monument to the failure of the Pratt and Whitney Wasp. For on the one-hour endurance test over Long Island, Temple Joyce, then test pilot for Curtiss and one of the best-known figures in aviation, grew tired of the monotony of cruising back and forth and decided to vary the routine with some acrobatics. But when he pulled back the stick and booted the rudder to do a nice snap roll, something snapped in the Wasp and Temp had to make a forced landing on the Curtiss field. The competitive Wasp in a competitor’s airplane had gone sour on its test flight! Consternation reigned in the Engine Section—matter of fact, it really poured. Examination disclosed that the crankshaft counterweight had sailed out through the crankcase. Now the cheek had been designed with ample margins for the stresses of centrifugal force, and the failure remained a mystery until I recalled a lesson learned as a student in the Sperry Gyro Compass School several years earlier. No one had anticipated the effect of gyroscopic forces like those set up in a snap roll. Now George Mead took these in hand and strengthened the shaft to withstand them. With this change, the Pratt and Whitney Wasp came to stay.