emonstrated 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 assured
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 assistant, 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]

[Illustration: 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, carryi