New-York tribune., 1919-02-02
Packard Has
Display Of
Liberty Motor
One i'll Garden, Other in
Armory, Both Are Brand
New and Specially Built
All-Round Fighting Plane
Story That Bombing Was Its
Limit Discounted by State
ment of Detroit Builders

Two Liberty motors in full working
order are displayed at the Packard
Motor Car Company of New York's
exhibit at the automobile show. One
is at Madison Square Garden and the
other at the Goth Regiment Armory
They arc brand new, just from the
Packard factory, where the Liberty
motor was designed and built, and
brought here especially for this expo
sition.
With view of the Liberty itself
the exhibit presents pictorial history
of how the Liberty motor came to be.
Everybody remembers how the Liberty
was for months "the mystery motor"
Claims and counterclaims were made
about it; Congress and the President
investigated it several times; finally,
Senator Hitchcock, of Nebraska, arose
in the Senate and said: "The Liberty
motor is the Packard motor"
Pictures Tell Story
The pictorial review of the Liberty's 5
evolution establishes its right to q
place in Packard exhibit. The first
photograph shows the first twelve
cylinder aviation engine made in Amer
lea, designed and built by the Packard
in November, 1915, a year and a half
before the United States entered the
war. Next appears the Packard 1905" !"
built to the scale of military require
ments. Then the Packard 1905 No. o.
built with the first all-steel cylinders.
Between this Packard 1905" and the
Liberty there is so little difference that
the casual eye would note no distinc-
tion. The similarity extends from such
large princiles as the twelev cylin-
ders and V type down to the details of
camshaft rocker arms.
1t was this Packard second "905" that
j. G. Vincent, the designer Of the Lib
erty motor, took down to Washington
in May, 1917, to submit as the standard
aviation motor for the American air
forces, and it was on this Packard en-
gi!ne that he based the design of the
Liberty.
Not So Limited
by some means or other which engi
neers are unable to fathom, the under
standing is rather general that the
Liberty motor proved especially valua-
bie as motive power for daylight bomb
ing planes and was limited to that pur-
pose. The truth about this great war
engine, it is held, however, is that for
fighting, bombing, observation and
other military requirements it was the
greatest all-round aviation engine that
appeared on the Western front,
In the De Haviland fighting planes,
in which it appeared in greatest num-
bers during the last two months of the
war, the Liberty engine developed q
speed of 130 miles an hour. In planes
especially fashioned for daylight bomb
ing of enemy lines and stores, and car
rying full military load of crew and
armament and missiles, it went sky
hooting through the air at 1875 miles
an hour.
The fact is, say the American air
craft engineers, there was only one
type of service plane to which the Lib
erty was not adaptable, and that was
the one-seater fighter. 1t was too heavy
for that, or at least for those one
scatter fighting planes that had been
developed. But in the De Havilands it
went over the German lines for the
American forces for the first time in
August, 1918, just about a year from
the day the first Liberty flew IN tests
at Mineola, l.. 7. A few weeks later
squadrons of Liberty motored planes
preceded Pershing's doughboys and
lowered over them during the quick
operation that is known as the snuffing
out of the Saint Mihiel salient.
Something Coming
What was coming in the way CT a
Liberty motored fighter just when the
almistice was signed still is partly a
secret, but the part that is known in
cuded this information: In January
of 1917 the French Aviation Mission
to America, composed of a dozen ex-
pert pilots, all of them specialists in
the fine arts of plane design, all of
them veterans Of from six to thirty
months service in the Great War, ar
rived at the Packard plant in Detroit
Special facilities weres created for
their work, and a corps of Packard's
best craftsmen, trained body-builders
in time of peace, marshalled to execute
BY midsummer the French Mission
out beautiful two scatter fighting
plane, called the lie Pere, after its
principal designer, Captain lie Pere OF
the French army. This plane was built
especially for the Liberty motor, its
every detail designed to bring out the
full advantages Of the great engine. In
tests it proved the fastest two -seate,
fighter ever built Two of these were
on the ocean, bound for the front
when the war ended, and twenty-five
more, glistening in their camoufiage
raint, were undergoing finishing touch.
es at the Packard plant.