The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928Meyer, Robert B.
History
The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928
Meyer, Robert B.
Airplanes -- Motors (Diesel)
Early in the development it became quite evident that cold starting
was a problem. This was finally worked out by Packard through the
use of glow plugs and speeding up the injectors during the cranking
period. It had been felt that during the slow cranking process we
were not vaporizing the fuel through the nozzles and that if we
could speed up the injection pumps during this period of cranking a
better vaporization could be obtained. Our tests showed that we
were right, and that the engine could be started quite easily at
minus 10 deg. F through the use of glow plugs. The method used for
speeding up the injection pumps was accomplished by utilizing a
crankshaft cam during the cranking period. The starter would shift
the running cam out of position allowing the crankshaft cam to take
over. After the engine fired, the starter was disengaged and the
running injector pump cam would assume its original position. The
starting cam would be run at engine speed during cranking, and the
running cam at 1/8 reverse engine speed during engine operation.
The shifting was accomplished by a pin-in-slot and spring
arrangement to change the indexing of the cams to starting position
and return.
An Eclipse electric starter with an oversized flywheel was used....
This was powered by a double-sized battery.
Development
Air Shutters: The first engines had no provision for throttling the
intake air. This allowed the engine to run on its own lubricating oil
when the throttle was in idle position. As a result the engine idled too
fast, thereby causing either excessive taxiing speeds or rapid brake
wear. This inability to idle slowly also caused high landing speeds
since the propeller did not turn slowly enough to act as an airbrake.
Figure 1 shows the first model. Note that the tubular air intakes on top
of the cylinders have no valves. Figure 32 shows a later model. Note the
butterfly valves in the U-shaped air intakes. Here they are shown fully
opened. When the throttle was placed in idle position these valves
automatically closed and prevented air from flowing past them. Air could
then only enter from the back of the intakes. Since less air could flow
into the cylinders, the force of their explosions was reduced, which, in
turn, lowered the idling revolutions per minute. Figure 28 shows a
cylinder from a more advanced model. Note the circular opening between
the air intake and the intake/exhaust housing. A barrel type of valve
fitted into this opening. One of these valves can be seen just below and
to the left of the cylinder. When the throttle was placed in idle
position this valve rotated to a position which cut off almost all of
the airflow into its cylinder. This increased the vacuum formed toward
the end of the intake stroke, thereby causing more resistance, which
reduced the idling rpm to that of a gasoline engine.[16]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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