Re: New "What Ifs?"

Posted by Steve203 On 2014/8/19 11:53:23

Utica would have played a valuable part here. Yes, there is a lot of woulda-coulda-shoulda here... but it was all very possible had not so many factors led the company to demise.


There was a lot of attrition in the US jet engine business in the 50s, so the odds were stacked against Packard, even if it had had more money.

Westinghouse was an early player and developed the J40 for the Navy. The government built a plant on Northline Rd in Romulus for the Lincoln-Mercury division to build J40s under contract. Westinghouse was never able to get the J40 to perform to specification, and the program's failure played a large part in Westinghouse's withdrawl from the jet engine business. With the early termination of the J40 program, Ford's contract to build them was cancelled on April 16, 53. The Northline Rd plant sat unused, until Kelsey-Hayes bought it in 59. This was also the plant that Curtiss-Wright was sniffing around at in April 54.

Curtiss also failed to make the transition to jets, in spite of Wright radials having been a major force in the industry for decades. The J65 was a license built version of the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, and apparently worked quite well.

C-W had however been dogged by poor product quality for years. The company was investigated for knowingly shipping defective engines during the war. By one account, the quality issues persisted through the 50s, resulting in the government dropping C-W from it's supplier list, which contributed to C-W selling Utica in 61.

With companies the size of Westinghouse and Curtiss-Wright not being able to stay in the jet engine business, Packard, with it's lack of resources, didn't stand a chance.