And to add a further complication, Leighton had shown a lively interest in the new air-cooled engine developed by Charles Lanier Lawrance. Charlie, while a student in Paris, had discovered the new 3-cylinder 60-hp Clerget, a fixed radial engine designed to overcome the deficiencies of the old Gnome-Rhone types with their rotating cylinders and gyroscopic effects. The Navy had at that time a demand for 180- to 200-hp engines, and suggested that Lawrance consolidate three of the 3-cylinder engines into a single 9-cylinder type.

Lawrance, with no production facilities of his own, had enlisted those of the de la Verne Machine Company, in New Jersey, and had begun his own development under the “run’em and bust’em” technique. In this he had looked for guidance to Capt. A. K. Atkins and Lt. Comdr. S. M. Kraus, of the Bureau of Engineering. When, later, Admiral Moffett created BUAERO, he placed Kraus in charge of Procurement and assigned Leighton as Chief of the Engine Section.

Meanwhile, Chance Vought, a clever airplane manufacturer in Long Island City, had built a smart little, two-seater, catapult-observation plane around the new engine, a craft that carried as much load as the Army DH using the Liberty engine, yet took up half as much space. And space was a critical factor within the narrow confines of a battleship or a cruiser’s decks.

With this increased demand, the Bureau was confronted with the need for bringing in an experienced aircraft manufacturer to fabricate the Lawrance engines, and had selected Wright. But since the new Lawrance was a direct competitor with Wright’s own Hispano E-4, Leighton had been obliged to bring pressure to bear and had finally forced consolidation of what he deemed the best design with what he considered the ablest manufacturer. Wright’s purchase of Lawrance had but recently taken place and I was to have the job of making the marriage productive. This, according to Leighton, was the big project of the Engine Section, if not, indeed, of BUAERO.

Meanwhile, he discussed other assorted possibilities, like the Aeromarine Airplane and Motor Corporation, of Keyport, New Jersey, and the Kinney Manufacturing Company, in Boston. Of the automotive people, only Packard retained an interest in aero engines. Leighton admitted that mine was a slender reed on which to lean. “The heart of the airplane,” he summed up, “has damaged muscles and leaky valves.” I concluded that it would have ceased beating entirely save for the grim courage of B. G. Leighton and his Engine Section.

“The air-cooled engine,” Leighton asserted, “is the Navy’s white hope. There is less sense in liquid-cooling an aircraft engine than in air-cooling a submarine. The weight of the Liberty radiator, water pump, plumbing, and water runs about three-quarters of a pound per horsepower, or say 300 pounds. Now there’s an old design adage that says ‘it takes a pound to carry a pound.’ In other words, each of those plumbing pounds takes another pound of wings and tail to lug it around. But with the air-cooled engine we can throw away the plumbing and convert that dead weight into pay load, with a smaller airplane. On board ship, you’ve got to keep ’em small or leave ’em off.”

By the end of my first day in the Engine Section, I was a bit groggy. Leighton had tossed engineering terms around with complete abandon, terms that I must pause to translate, even as he moved on into new flights of technical verbiage. Yet from that first day’s talk I gleaned the fact that the power plant is the heart of an airplane, that aeronautical progress is paced by an engine’s “pounds per horsepower,” and that the air-cooled engine, as yet quite undeveloped, offered the greatest promise of usefulness to the Navy. Meanwhile, with the Engine Section as the focus of that development, no dull moments loomed on the horizon.

CHAPTER THREE
Its Vital Spark

Next morning we resumed my indoctrination, as we did on subsequent mornings. Leighton began by expounding the advantages of air-cooled over liquid-cooled engines, especially from the viewpoint of naval aviation. The Army could, of course, spread out all over the prairies, but the Navy must ride on the “backs of the fleet.”

“If,” I interposed, “it is as clear-cut as that, what has been retarding the development?” Leighton heaved a sigh.