Re: Packard Aero Record

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2011/5/6 15:57:38

I'm really surprised about your not knowing about this - don't you have any Packard history books? Sure, it flew extensively and set quite a few endurance records. It was known as the DR-980 and among it's records was an endurance record not broken until 1980 - 84 hours and 33 minutes in flight on 481 gallons of fuel as noted in 55Packaryguy's post above. Robert Neal's "Master Motor Builders" has an entire chapter devoted to it.

The reason the elimination of the ignition system was important wasn't weight, it was that it eliminated interference with radio transmission.