kard's
reduced structural safety factor. It is significant that as the Packard
developed, it became heavier.[40]

Like other diesels, the Packard cost more to build than a comparable
gasoline engine, because of the type of construction required for the
diesel's higher maximum cylinder pressures and the difficulty of
machining the fuel injectors. Having fuel injectors, the engine was more
sensitive to dirt in the fuel system than a carburetor-equipped
gasoline engine.[41] The fuel injectors were "a crude and deficient
mechanism" subject to rapid wear, and often these injectors caused
smoking exhausts and high fuel consumptions.[42] In the event of battery
or starter failure, a comparable gasoline engine could be started by
swinging the propeller. Because of the engine's high compression, it
would have been impossible to have hand-started a Packard diesel this
way.

In a letter to the Air Museum, January 15, 1962, Dorner commented:
"During my first demonstration (of high-speed diesel engines) in 1926 in
California and later in Detroit I learned from Capt. Woolson that the
large transport airlines were controlled by oil companies which were not
interested in (supplying) two different kinds of aircraft fuel, and in
savings of fuel." The May issue of _Aero Digest_ had a full-page
illustrated advertisement titled "Announcing National Distribution for
Texaco Aerodiesel Fuel." Although distribution was limited, the American
oil industry did not prevent the airplane diesel from becoming a success
in the civil market. However, it is significant that the advertisement
was placed by Frank Hawks of the Texas Company largely as a gesture of
friendship to Woolson.[43]

The situation in the military market was different, however, as
testified by this quotation from the same letter. "The military
administration, having paid all of the expenses for the testing period
to that date (1931), came after the tests to the conclusion that the
advantages of the diesel as compared to its disadvantages did not
justify the great risk to procure and distribute two different kinds of
fuel in case of war."

Two accidents, which received wide publicity and no doubt did
considerable harm to the entire project, occurred to Packard
diesel-powered airplanes. The following quotation is from the _Herald
Tribune_ for April 23, 1930: "Attica, New York--Losing their bearings in
a blinding snowstorm and mistaking the side of a snow-covered hill for a
suitab