[citation needed] Rocheville sought for a safe, fool-proof airplane with exceptional range, endurance, and payload.

He intended to make a non-stop flight from Tokyo to Seattle with navigator Theo Lundgren, a distance of about 5,000 mi (8,000 km).

[2] By June 1930 it had been fitted with a 300 hp (220 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior nine-cylinder radial engine.

The two crew sat in open tandem cockpits in a central nacelle with circular cross-section, initially with a 165 hp (123 kW) Continental A-70 in tractor configuration.

The nacelle ended in a jet-engine like 'exhaust' nozzle at its rear, which actually was an intake to a boundary-layer bleed system driven by the engine which blew air through spanwise slots in the rear part of the 'Flying Wing' in an attempt to increase the wing's performance.