Moffett turns helicopters into a funded naval program

Redirecting Moffett's enthusiasm toward helicopters could also keep him out of the fatal Akron crash, prolonging his influence on naval aviation. The scenario depends less on a lone inventor than on a leader able to obtain money and sustain experimentation. Moffett had already demonstrated a rare ability to persuade Congress to finance naval aviation, so his support could turn helicopters into a program rather than a curiosity. Reconnaissance, gunnery spotting, anti-submarine patrols, personnel transfer, and troop movement give him several missions with which to justify that spending. American progress would then pressure the Royal Navy to respond, especially while the Air Ministry remained focused on bombers and showed little interest in rotary-wing support aircraft. Helicopters could consequently become an early institutional route by which the Royal Navy reasserts control over part of naval aviation.