he ordered the development of a new aircraft to be powered by Price's engine, developing the engine as the L-1000 and the aircraft as the Lockheed L-133. Later that year the Tizard Mission arrived in the US and presented many technological advances being worked on in England, including information on Frank Whittle's jet engine designs. Rumors of similar work in Germany and the well-publicized flights in Italy suggested that practically everyone but the US was working on jets and getting a design of their own suddenly took on the utmost importance. Vannevar Bush, Tizard's counterpart in the US, decided the best course of action was to simply license the British designs. A committee under the direction of William F. Durand was set up to put the British designs into production and build an aircraft to test them. These projects emerged as the General Electric J31 powering the P-59 Airacomet. On 30 March 1942, Lockheed submitted proposals for the L-133 and L-1000 to the US Army Air Force's development division at Wilbur Wright Field. By this point the original design proved too complex and had evolved into a new design replacing the pistons with a set of three centrifugal stages, with intercooling between each of the stages. The main combustor was a "canular" type with twelve flame cans in an annular container, feeding their exhaust to a five-stage axial turbine. For additional thrust, fuel could be sprayed between the turbine stages. To fine-tune performance at different altitudes, the compressor and turbine stages were coupled using a variable-speed hydraulic clutch. The design called for a weight of 1,700 lb (775 kg) and a sea level thrust of 5,100 lbf (22700 N). By November 1942 the design had been further refined, with the weight settling at 1,610 lb (735 kg) and the combustion area using chrome-steels. The Army remained uninterested and Lockheed apparently started getting cold feet. Nevertheless, on 19 May 1943 Price agreed to start a more radical redesign at the urging of Wright Field. He produced a much simpler design consisting of two sixteen-stage axial compressors with a single stage of intercooling between them. The first four stages of the frontmost compressor remained clutched to allow them to operate at optimum speed. For testing purposes the compressor blades had no airfoil shaping and were attached to the central hub on rotating mounts to allow their angles to be changed between runs.