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WAR DEPARTMENT
WASHINGTON

May 6, 1941

The Honorable,

The Secretary of the Interior.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Reference is made to your letter of April 14, 1941, requesting the allocation of $45,000 to the National Park Service of your Department from the $300,000 originally appropriated for rotary wing development, indicating that the use will be to cover "salaries of two pilots, gasoline and oil, to provide accommodations for house the machines, and to purchase equipment, including flying suits, helmets, goggles, 4 new taper rotor blade sets, a new 225 h.p. engine, and miscellaneous items.

Attention is invited to the fact that an unobligated balance of only $44,384.50 remains from the funds originally alloted for rotary wing development. This is after contracts have been let for Platt-LePage XR-1 and Vought Sikorsky XR-4 helicopters. Attention is further invited to the fact that at a conference in the Office, Chief of Air Corps, Washington D.C., on Decemeber 17, 1940, at which all interested Government departments and agencies were represented, it was recommended and agree that the fund remaining after the purchase of a Vought-Sikorsky XR-4 helicopter, approved at that meeting, would not be obligated until the two experimental helicopters, now under construction, were completed and flown. This action was suggested in view of the probable necessity for changes and expenses of a material nature, indicated during the flight testing period.

In view of this conference agreement, together with the belief that the expenditure of funds for such items such as salaries, fuel and oil, accommodations for housing the machines, and flying suits, would not be productive of results of value to any Government agency but the Interior Department, favorable action on your request cannot be recommended by this Department.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Henry L. Stimson
Secretary of War