"The war depends on the gasoline engine," said Joseph Stalin in 1941. "The country with the biggest output in engines will be the ultimate victor." It was no comfort to ex-Ally Stalin last week that Frederick Brant Rentschler, who did as much as any man to make that prediction come true, was on the move again.
Rangy (6 ft. 2), broad-shouldered Fred Rentschler is chairman and chief executive officer of United Aircraft Corp., whose Pratt & Whitney plants and licensees turned out 363,619 aircraft engines in World War II, provided just about half of all the horsepower used by the combined U.S. air arms. Last week Fred Rentschler was ready to do the incredible once more. To 15,000 workers in Pratt & Whitney's main plant at East Hartford, Conn., he sent out an emergency message: cancel all vacations, stand by for big military orders.
The Future Is Bigger. Fred Rentschler has always believed that the best airplane is only as good as its engine. Twenty-six years ago, at 36, he quit his job as president of Wright Aeronautical Corp. when his board of directors boggled at his demands for funds for engine research. The popular dream of 1924—a "flivver" plane for every American family—left him unmoved. He was sure the future of aviation lay in bigger aircraft, ever more powerful engines. He went looking for a place to build a brand-new air-cooled engine that would outclass the liquid-cooled engines such as the French Hispano-Suiza which then dominated the air world. He found his spot at the Pratt & Whitney tool company, a generations-old firm of precision instrument makers. When Rentschler unpacked his plans for the engine and predicted that the U.S. Navy would need hundreds of them for the planes of its infant carrier force, the shrewd Yankees wasted little time on bargaining. They promised Rentschler $250,000 in 1925 to help finance the new Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co., promised him $1,000,000 more if the Navy approved his model.
Rentschler promptly assembled his production team: M.I.T.-trained George Mead, Designer Andy Willgoos, who could "think with his fingertips," and Aeronautical Engineer Don Brown. In nine months, they perfected the 415-h.p. air-cooled "Wasp." It weighed only 650 Ibs., was the most powerful engine for its weight ever built. The Navy was so awed by the engine's test performance it ordered the first Wasp placed on exhibition in Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, where it remains today. It has never flown.