Fred went on to develop the vast difference between the volume-producing industries, where low first cost was the incentive, and the aircraft industry, where low operating cost was the real criterion. The airline operator could afford to pay a high price for high quality aircraft, provided he reduced his operating costs enough to absorb the first cost in a reasonable time. The whole character of the two types of industry differed, and neither could expect to do the other’s job. Technological development was the key to the economic security of an enterprise like aviation. The way to keep in the forefront was to stress your engineering; once you got behind you could never catch up, unless the other fellow broke a leg and fell down. Yes, he thought, this aviation was a funny business. At this remark, Chance Vought woke up. “The thing that is funny about it,” he said sleepily, “is that it has at last become a business.” I sat looking out over Rock Creek Park as it faded into the shadows. The conversation had pointed up a new situation in my own affairs. If aviation was now a business, then my job here was finished. You could hardly have called it that three and a half years ago, and the time had come for me to go to sea, lest some Selection Board pass me by. I’d go see Admiral Moffett in the morning. But in the morning the admiral was, as usual, one jump ahead of me. I found a note on my desk instructing me to see him the first thing. In his corner office he waved a letter at me, one scrawled in longhand in the bold writing of Rear Adm. Joseph M. Reeves, Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet. It was dated at San Diego, California, on the _Langley_, and it took note of the fact that the carriers _Saratoga_ and _Lexington_ were scheduled to join the fleet in a year or so. His chief of staff, Karl Smith, was ill and he needed a relief for him. He asked if I could be made available. “Bull” Reeves was a distinguished officer and an able commander. Only a year or two earlier he had dropped in on me in the Engine Section to inquire if I thought he should accept an invitation to join the aeronautic organization and go to Pensacola for instruction with the ultimate idea of succeeding to command of the Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet. He had graduated from Annapolis into the old Engineer Corps but later, upon amalgamation with the line, had qualified for command. A hero of Naval Academy football, he had been on duty at Annapolis as an instructor while I had been a midshipman, and he had been rated “white” by all hands—the highest commendation an officer could earn from the brigade. During the Spanish American War, he had made a name for himself in the engine room of the old _Oregon_ in her dash around the Horn. Admiral Moffett was smiling at my obvious satisfaction. “Yes,” he remarked, “you should be a big help to me out there.”