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test of that first Liberty engine in the L.W.F. Model F on August 21, 1917. This was followed by the G using the Liberty 12. Their first contract was for training planes, which was changed during the fall of 1917 for HS-2-L flying boats for the Navy. On November 18, 1918, Arens was flying as observer-mechanic with Allen S. Adams, company test pilot, and was injured in a crash which took Adam's lie. They were flying a Model G with a Liberty engine.
After World War I, L.W.F. remodeled some DH-4s to be used as mail planes. They brought out a small sport plane known as the "Butterfly"; a twin-motored DH mail plane and a new trimotored aerial freighter and cargo plane which later became the L.W.F. "Owl." During this time Arens was busy on many creative assignments. One of these was a motor test-stand rig. For the controls he worked out a bent casing with an internal push-pull cable arrangement instead of using levers and linkage. The scheme worked well and was the  beginning of an idea which later developed into an enterprising business. When the L.W.F. Engineering Company closed in 1923, Arens returned to Chicago and started to work for the E.M. Laird Airplane Company. In 1926 Arens, holding A & E Mechanic License No. 240, became a mechanic for the newly established Chicago-Minneapolis Airmail Line, owned by Charles Dickinson, using Laird planes. 
During this time Arens had continued to develop the controls idea in his basement workshop and started to fill small orders for special purposes. His business grew and finally he had devoted full time to the project to keep up with his orders. About this time he finished the controls for Brock and Schlee's special Stinson Monoplane which they flew most of the way around the world. In 1929 Arens contracted with a Chicago firm to make the controls under his management while he also handled sales. He furnished all the controls in the early Ford-Stout all-metal monoplanes, and the motor controls for the Boeing mailplane 40 B. Arens' controls were used on many of the early planes.