The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 Part 1

The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928.

by Robert B. Meyer.

Acknowledgments

It is difficult to acknowledge fully the a.s.sistance given by persons and museums for the preparation of this book. However, I wish especially to thank Hugo T. Byttebier, engine historian, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dipl. Ing. Hermann I. A. Dorner, diesel designer, Hanover, Germany; Harold E. Morehouse, and C. H. Wiegman, Lycoming Engines, Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Barry Tully, Goodyear Aircraft, Akron, Ohio; Richard S.

Allen, aviation author, Round Lake, New York; William H. Cramer, brother of Parker D. Cramer, Wantagh, New York; Erik Hildes-Heim, Early Bird and aviation historian, Fairfield, Connecticut.

I am particularly grateful to curators of the following museums who have been so generous in their a.s.sistance: Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany (Dipl. Ing. W. Jackle); Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan (Leslie, R. Henry); U.S. Air Force Museum, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio (Maj. Robert L. Bryant, Jr., director); Science Museum, London, England (Lt. Comdr. (E) W. J. Tuck, Royal Navy). The preparation of this paper could not have been accomplished without the aid of the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution and the help of Philip S. Hopkins, director, and Paul E. Garber, head curator and historian.

Foreword

In this second number of the _Smithsonian Annals of Flight_, Robert B.

Meyer Jr., curator and head of the flight propulsion division, tells the story of the first oil-burning engine to power an airplane, the Packard diesel engine of 1928, now in the collections of the National Air Museum.

The author's narrative, well ill.u.s.trated with drawings and photographs, provides a historical background for the development of the engine, and a technical description that includes specifications and details of performance. It also contains comments from men and women who flew planes powered by the Packard diesel. The author concludes with an a.n.a.lysis of the engine's advantages and disadvantages.

PHILIP S. HOPKINS

_Director, National Air Museum_

30 July 1964

Introduction

On display in the National Air Museum, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, is the first oil-burning engine to power an airplane. Its label reads: "Packard Diesel Engine--1928--This first compression-ignition engine to power an airplane developed 225 hp at 1950 revolutions per minute. It was designed under the direction of L. M. Woolson. In 1931, a production example of this engine powered a Bellanca airplane to an 84 hour and 33 minute nonrefueled duration record which has never been equalled.--Weight/power ratio: 2.26 lb per hp--Gift of Packard Motor Car Co."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 1 (left).--Front view of first Packard diesel, 1928. Note hoop holding cylinders in place and absence of venturi throttles. This engine was equipped with an air pressure starting system. (Smithsonian photo A2388.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 2 (right).--Left side view of first Packard diesel, 1928. Heywood starter (air) fitting shown on the head of the next to lowest cylinder. (Smithsonian photo A2388C.)]

This revolutionary engine was created in the short time of one year.

Within two years of its introduction in 1928, airplane diesel engines were being tested in England by Rolls-Royce, in France by Panhard, in Germany by Junkers, in Italy by Fiat, and in the United States by Guiberson. Packard had demonstrated to the world the remarkable economy and safety of the airplane diesel engine, and the response was immediate and favorable. The novelty and performance of the Packard diesel a.s.sured it a large and attentive audience wherever it was exhibited. Yet in spite of its performance record the engine was doomed to failure by reason of its design, and it was further handicapped by having been rushed into production before it could be thoroughly tested.

History

The official beginning of the Packard diesel engine can be traced to a license agreement dated August 18, 1927, between Alvan Macauley, president of the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and Dipl. Ing. Hermann I. A. Dorner, a diesel engine inventor of Hanover, Germany.[1] Before the agreement was drawn up, Capt. Lionel M. Woolson, chief aeronautical engineer for Packard, tested an air-cooled and a water-cooled diesel that Dorner had designed and built in Germany.[2]

Both engines attained the then high revolutions per minute of 2000 and proved efficient and durable. They demonstrated the practicability of Dorner's patented "solid" type of fuel injection which formed the basis of the Packard diesel's design.[3] Using elements from Dorner's engines, Woolson and Dorner designed the Packard diesel with the help of Packard engineers and Dorner's a.s.sistant, Adolph Widmann. Woolson was responsible for the weight-saving features, and Dorner for the combustion system.

The historic first flight took place on September 19, 1928, at the Packard proving grounds in Utica, Michigan, just a year and a month from the day Dorner agreed to join the Packard team. Woolson and Walter E.

Lees, Packard's chief test pilot, used a Stinson SM-1DX "Detroiter." The flight was so successful, and later tests were so encouraging, that Packard built a $650,000 plant during the first half of 1929 solely for the production of its diesel engine. The factory was designed to employ more than 600 men, and 500 engines a month were to have been manufactured by July 1929.[4]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 3.--Alvan Macauley (left), President of the Packard Motor Car Co. and Col. Charles A. Lindbergh with the original Packard diesel-powered Stinson "Detroiter" in the background, 1929.

(Smithsonian photo A48319D.)]

The engine's first cross-country flight was accomplished on May 13, 1929, when Lees flew the Stinson SM-1DX "Detroiter" from Detroit, Michigan, to Norfolk, Virginia, carrying Woolson to the annual field day of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at Langley Field. The 700-mile trip was flown in 6-1/2 hours, and the cost of the fuel consumed was $4.68. Had the airplane been powered with a comparable gasoline engine, the fuel cost would have been about 5 times as great.[5] On March 9, 1930, using the same airplane and engine, Lees and Woolson flew from Detroit, Michigan, to Miami, Florida, a distance of 1100 miles in 10 hours and 15 minutes with a fuel cost of $8.50. The production engine, slightly refined from the original, received the first approved type certificate issued for any diesel aircraft engine on March 6, 1930. The Department of Commerce granted certificate no. 43 after the Packard Company had ground- and flight-tested this type of engine for approximately 338,000 hp hr, or about 1500 hr of operation.[6]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 4.--Dipl. Ing. Hermann I. A. Dorner, 1930. German diesel engine designer, was responsible for the Packard DR-980 aircraft engine. (Smithsonian photo A48645.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 5.--Capt. Lionel M. Woolson, 1931. Chief Aeronautical Engineer, Packard Motor Car Co. Designer of Packard DR-980 diesel engine. (Smithsonian photo A48645A.)]

One of the early production versions powered a Bellanca "Pacemaker"

which was piloted by Lees and his a.s.sistant Frederic A. Brossy to a world's nonrefueling heavier-than-air duration record. The flight lasted for 84 hours, 33 minutes from May 25 through 28, 1931, over Jacksonville, Florida. This event was so important that it was the basis of the following editorial, published in the July 1931 issue of _Aviation_,[7] which summarizes so well the progress made by the diesel engine over a 3-year period and the hope held for its future:

A RECORD CROSSES THE ATLANTIC--The Diesel engine took its first step toward acceptance as a powerplant for heavier-than-air craft when, in the summer of 1928, a diesel-powered machine first flew.

The second step was made at the 1930 Detroit show, when the engine went on commercial sale. The third was accomplished last month, when a plane with a compression-ignition engine using furnace oil as a fuel circled over the beaches around Jacksonville for 84 hours and inscribed its performance upon the books as a world's record--the longest flight ever made without intermediate refueling.

With the pa.s.sing of the refueling-duration excitement, and with the apparent decision to allow that record to stand permanently at its present level, trials for straight time in the air without replenishment of supplies begin to regain a proper degree of appreciation. No other record, unless it be some of those for speed with substantial dead loads, is of such importance as the non-stop distance and duration marks. No other has such bearing upon precisely those qualities of aerodynamic efficiency, fuel economy, and reliability of airplane and powerplant that most affect commercial usefulness. It is more than three years since the duration record left American sh.o.r.es, and it has been more than doubled in that time. Its return is very welcome.

It is doubly welcome for being made with a fundamentally new type of engine. The diesel principle is not a commercial monopoly. It is open to anyone. Already two different designs in America, and one or two in Europe, have been in the air. For certain purposes, at least, it seems reasonable to expect that its special advantages will bring it into widespread use. Every practical demonstration of the progress of the diesel toward realizing its theoretical possibilities in the air as it has realized them on the land and at sea is a bit of progress toward better and more economical commercial flying, and so benefits the whole industry. The fourth, and next, main element in the demonstration will be provided when diesels go into regular service on some well-known transport line as standard equipment, and the acc.u.mulation of data on performance under normal service conditions begins. We believe that that will happen before the end of 1932.

Many men, from Dr. Rudolf Diesel to Walter Lees and Frederic Brossy, have had direct or indirect hands in the making of this record. The greatest of all contributions was that of Lionel M.

Woolson, who created the engine and flew with it in every test and brought it through its early troubles to the point of readiness for the commercial market. The flight that lasted four days and three nights is his memorial, quite as much as is the bronze plaque unveiled last April in the Detroit show hangar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 6.--Stinson SM-1DX "Detroiter." This airplane, powered with original Packard DR-980 diesel engine, made the world's first diesel-powered flight on September 19, 1928. (Photo courtesy of Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 7.--Packard-Bellanca "Pacemaker." This airplane, powered by a Packard DR-980 diesel, holds the world's record for nonrefueling, heavier-than-air aircraft duration flight. The flight lasted 84 hours, 33 minutes, 1-1/4 seconds, and was completed on May 28, 1931, Jacksonville, Florida. (Smithsonian photo A48446B.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 8.--Verville "Air Coach," October 1930.

(Smithsonian photo A48844.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 9.--Packard-Bellanca "Pacemaker" owned by Transamerican Airlines Corporation and used by Parker D. Cramer, pilot, and Oliver L. Paquette, radio operator, in their flight from Detroit, Michigan, to Lerwick, Shetland Islands, summer 1931. (Smithsonian photo A200.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 10.--Ford 11-AT-1 Trimotor, 1930, with 3 Packard 225-hp DR-980 diesel engines. Note special bracing for the outboard nacelles. (Smithsonian photo A48311B.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 11.--Towle TA-3 Flying Boat, 1930, with 2 Packard 225-hp DR-980 diesel engines. (Smithsonian photo A48319.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 12.--Stewart M-2 Monoplane, 1930, with 2 Packard 225-hp DR-980 diesel engines. (Smithsonian photo A48319C.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 13.--Consolidated XPT-8A, 1930. This is a Consolidated PT-3A powered by a DR-980 Packard diesel. (Smithsonian photo A48319E.)]