In the early 1920s, aviation military procurement boards were obsessed with heavy, liquid-cooled engines. Enter Charles Lawrance, a brilliant engineer who championed air-cooled radial engines. Lawrance's design eliminated heavy radiators and cooling liquids entirely, relying solely on forward airflow to chill the cylinders.
Despite the brilliant simplicity and drastically reduced weight of his engine, three separate military procurement boards rejected his concepts, deeming air-cooling inherently unreliable for high-performance flight. Unfazed, Lawrance stubbornly refined his design. Recognizing its potential for aircraft carrier operations, the U.
S. Navy eventually coerced Wright Aeronautical into buying Lawrance's company to mass-produce the engine. The resulting powerplant was the Wright J-5 Whirlwind.
Fast forward to 1927: Charles Lindbergh was preparing for his legendary solo transatlantic flight aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh calculated that a liquid-cooled engine posed too high a risk; a single radiator puncture or hose failure over the Atlantic meant guaranteed death.
Instead, he chose Lawrance's air-cooled masterpiece. The engine operated without a single hiccup for 33. 5 hours straight across 3,600 miles of ocean, making aviation history and proving that military procurement boards can be spectacularly wrong.