LIBERTY ENGINE ON INSTRUCTION STAND, WILBUR WRIGHT FIELD.
VIEW SHOWING LIBERTY ENGINE WITH PROPELLER HUB ATTACHED.
TEST SHED AND STAND WITH LIBERTY ENGINE MOUNTED WITH TEST PROPELLER. PACKARD MOTOR CAR CO.
Difficulties in transportation during the winter of 1917-18 added their share to the perplexing problems of the engine builders, while at times the scarcity of coal threatened the complete shutdown of some of the plants.
Under such obstacles the engine-production department forced the manufacture of the Liberty engine at a speed never before known in the automotive industry. In December, 1917, the Government received the first 22 Liberty engines of the 12-cylinder type, durable and dependable, a standardized, concrete product, only seven months after the Liberty engine existed merely as an idea in the brains of two engineers. These first engines developed a strength of approximately 330 horsepower, and this was true also of the first 300 Liberty engines delivered, these deliveries being completed in the early spring of 1918.
When the Liberty engine was designed our aviation experts believed that 330 horsepower was so far in advance of the development of aero engines in Europe that we could safely go ahead with the production of this type on a quantity basis. But again we reckoned without an accurate prophetic knowledge of the course of engine development abroad. We were building the first 300 Liberty engines at 330 horsepower when our aviation reports informed us from overseas that an even higher horsepower would be desirable. Therefore our engineers "stepped up" the power of the Liberty 12-cylinder engine to 375 horsepower. Several hundred motors of this power were in process of completion when again our observers in France advised us that we could add another 25 horsepower to the Liberty, making it 400 horsepower in strength, and be sure of leading all of the combatant nations in size and power of aviation engines during 1918 and 1919. This last step, we were assured, was the final, definite one. But to anticipate possible extraordinary development of engines by other nations, our engineers went even further than the mark advised by our overseas observers and raised the power of the Liberty engine to something in excess of 400 horsepower.