The development of the new engines and the creation of new aircraft around them came just in time to ease a serious situation in connection with the outfitting of the new carriers Saratoga and Lexington. The ships were scheduled for completion in about two years and their squadrons were even then being assembled at the Fleet Air Stations at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and San Diego, California. And while the Wasp put us on easier schedules for the fighters, we were still up against it for the big torpedo-bomber scouts. Our SC’s, designed originally around the Wright T-3, had proved cumbersome and heavy and, while operable on twin floats, had lacked the performance desired for carrier use. The large engine had introduced a propeller problem, too—one that for a while had given us a lot of concern.
One of the SC’s, equipped with a standard propeller made of laminated woods glued together and finished to form, had let go on take-off at Hampton Roads and the engine had nearly jumped out of the plane. In response to an excited call from Norfolk, I had flown down in company with Charles J. McCarthy, then our stress expert, to see what could be done. Fortunately, about this time the Army Engineering Division at McCook Field had brought along an experimental development, under the supervision of Frank Caldwell, in which a new aluminum alloy called “duralumin” had been introduced as a substitute for wood. So far it had not been fully proved in service but we were in such a right spot that I now authorized the procurement of the first production order for 100 of them.
Now to round out the carrier program we must needs do something about those torpedo bombers. The engine situation began to assume a certain stable pattern that could be used to foster development: Wright had a nice bit of business and without serious competition in the 200-hp air-cooled Whirlwind class; Pratt and Whitney had a similar nest egg in their domination of the 400-hp Wasp category; both companies had undertaken new developments in a larger 500-hp type. At Wright it was the Cyclone; at Pratt and Whitney, the Hornet. But neither of these engines looked big enough for the torpedo-bomber class and every engineer in the industry had solemnly assured me in writing that to build a 600-hp air-cooled radial was completely impossible. In light of this dictum we had installed a Packard 2500, 800-hp liquid-cooled engine in one of the SC’s which we had called the “SC-6” but which the mechanics had promptly dubbed the “Sea Cow.” Now the time had arrived to give the old girl an endurance test.
The personnel of the Engine Section had undergone some change since my taking over. After Ricco Botta had gone to sea I brought in Lt. L. D. Webb, a naval aviator and experienced engineer. Lee had started his naval career as an enlisted man and had served as an electrician in a submarine. In World War I he had qualified as a pilot and been commissioned in the Reserve. Later he had taken the examinations and transferred to the regular service. He was a burly fellow with a broad back, the kind you like to ride behind in an airplane. With Lee in the cockpit, me in the rear seat, and Capt. Lionel M. Woolson, the Packard experimental engineer, lying on a mattress back in the tail, the Sea Caw started her take-off at dawn from the bosom of the Potomac River abreast of the spot where the Presidential Yacht Mayflower lay. We were so heavily laden with fuel that we missed the first run after roaring past the Mayflower wide open with our eight hundred horses straining. On the second run past, I noticed a figure in a nightgown waving encouragement to us, but a second look revealed it as President Coolidge himself and his clenched fist waved no encouragement.
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.”