And as hour after hour we droned up and down Chesapeake Bay, trying to burn out the fuel to determine our real endurance, I began thinking of a scheme that might solve our problem. Certainly the big liquid-cooled Packard didn’t make sense; but a 600-hp air-cooled might do the job. Our _Sea Cow_ grossed some 12,000 pounds of dead weight with her full load of fuel and was correspondingly big and unwieldy. If someone could build a 600-hp radial he would automatically save nearly a ton right off the bat; and if some smart designer could find a way to build a lighter airplane structure, we might get the whole thing down to something of the order of 7,500 pounds. This would give us a smaller, handier airplane that would still carry the bomb, torpedo, and fuel load we wanted, and thus complete the outfit for our new carriers with an all-air-cooled complement. The problem was how to get the job done—and Old Man Competition was the obvious answer. The chance of a lifetime came one day with a visit from the dean of our aircraft manufacturers, Glenn L. Martin. Glenn’s black mood quite overshadowed his natty dress. He was about to finish his contract for torpedoplanes and had no new business in sight. First thing BUAERO knew he’d have to fire his whole organization and, once they got scattered, their know-how and teamwork would be lost forever. It was up to the Bureau to do something to save Glenn Martin. “Have you tried creating a new model, Glenn?” I asked innocently enough. Glenn protested that his SC was the last word and that nothing much better could be produced. “I’ve had an idea checked out by the drafting room,” I said, “and they agree that if some smart airplane manufacturer were to design a new torpedo carrier around, say a new six hundred-horsepower air-cooled engine, he could get it down to about seventy-five hundred pounds gross, provided he could develop some new structural features along the lines that Charles Ward Hall has proposed.” Glenn was skeptical; and besides, he and the others had little confidence in those tricky aluminum structures that Charles Ward Hall proposed; they held out for welded steel. And besides, where could you get a 600-hp air-cooled radial? “Both the Cyclone and Hornet do five hundred twenty-five horsepower now,” I said, “and if a smart airplane designer made a deal with one or the other for a 600-hp type, say a year from now, the direct competition in that class might persuade one or both of them to push the development for you in time to give you the power you need, and by that time you can have your revolutionary model.” Glenn’s puckered brow suggested thought. “Do you think the Bureau would finance such a development,” he asked, “with an experimental contract?” “Oh, yes,” I agreed, “up at the Naval Aircraft Factory at Philadelphia.” Glenn was shocked by the suggestion. “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?” he inquired.