The Robert J. Collier Trophy, America’s highest aviation award, was won by the Packard Motor Car Company in 1931 for its development of the diesel engine. The formal presentation was made at the White House, March 31, 1932, by President Hoover on behalf of the National Aeronautic Association. Alvan Macauley, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, accepted the trophy, saying: “We do not claim, Mr. President, that we have reached the final development even though our diesel aircraft engine is an accomplished fact and we have the pioneer’s joy of knowing that we have successfully accomplished what had not been done before....”[8] The amazing early success of the Packard diesel is illustrated by the following chronological summary:
1927—License agreement signed between Alvan Macauley and Hermann I. A. Dorner to permit designing of the engine.
1928—First flight of a diesel-powered airplane accomplished.
1929—First cross-country flights accomplished.
1930—Packard diesels were sold on the commercial market and were used to power airplanes manufactured by a dozen different American companies.
1931—World’s official duration record for nonrefueled heavier-than-air flight. First flight across the Atlantic by a diesel-powered airplane.
1932—Packard diesels tested successfully in the Goodyear nonrigid airship Defender.[9] Official American altitude record for diesel-powered airplanes established (this record still stands).
In spite of this promising record, the project died in 1933. The December 1950 issue of Pegasus gave two reasons for the failure of the engine: “One blow had already been dealt the program through the accidental death of Capt. L. M. Woolson, Packard’s chief engineer in charge of the Diesel development, on April 23, 1930. Then the Big Depression took its toll in research work everywhere and Packard was not excepted.”