page_title: Diesel fuel
section_title: Aircraft
hierarchical_section_title: Diesel fuel / Uses / Aircraft
context_page_description: Diesel fuel in general is any liquid fuel used in diesel engines, whose fuel ignition takes place, without any spark, as a result of compression of the inlet air mixture and then injection of fuel. Diesel engines have found broad use as a result of higher thermodynamic efficiency and thus fuel efficiency. This is particularly noted where diesel engines are run at part-load; as their air supply is not throttled as in a gasoline engine, their efficiency still remains very high.
  The most common type of diesel fuel is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum fuel oil, but alternatives that are not derived from petroleum, such as biodiesel, biomass to liquid or gas to liquid diesel, are increasingly being developed and adopted. To distinguish these types, petroleum-derived diesel is increasingly called petrodiesel in some academic circles. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel is a standard for defining diesel fuel with substantially lowered sulfur contents. As of 2016, almost all of the petroleum-based diesel fuel available in the UK, mainland Europe, and North America is of a ULSD type.
context_section_description: The first diesel-powered flight of a fixed-wing aircraft took place on the evening of 18 September 1928, at the Packard Proving Grounds near Utica, Michigan. With Captain Lionel M. Woolson and Walter Lees at the controls the first "official" test flight was taken the next morning, flying a Stinson SM-1B (X7654), powered by a Packard DR-980 9-cylinder diesel radial engine, designed by Woolson. Charles Lindbergh flew the same aircraft and in 1929, it was flown 621 miles (999 km) nonstop from Detroit to Langley Field, near Norfolk, Virginia. In 1931, Walter Lees and Fredrick Brossy set the nonstop flight record flying a Bellanca powered by a Packard diesel for 84 hours and 32 minutes. X7654 is now owned by Greg Herrick and is at the Golden Wings Flying Museum near Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  Diesel engines for airships were developed in both Germany and the United Kingdom by Daimler-Benz and Beardmore produced the Daimler-Benz DB 602 and Beardmore Typhoon respectively. The LZ 129 Hindenburg rigid airship was powered by four Daimler-Benz DB 602 16-cylinder diesel engines, each with 1,200 hp (890 kW) available in bursts and 850 horsepower (630 kW) available for cruising. The Beardmore Typhoon powered the ill-fated R101 airship, built for the Empire airship programme in 1931.
  With a production run of at least 900 engines, the most-produced aviation diesel engine in history was probably the Junkers Jumo 205. Similar developments from the Junkers Motorenwerke and licence-built versions of the Jumo 204 and Jumo 205, boosted German diesel aero-engine production to at least 1000 examples, the vast majority of which were liquid-cooled, opposed-piston, two-stroke engines.
  In the Soviet Union significant progress towards practical diesel aero-engines was made by the TsIAM (Tsentral'nyy Institut Aviatsionnovo Motorostroyeniya – central institute of aviation motors) and particularly by A.D. Charomskiy, who nursed the Charomskiy ACh-30 into production and limited operational use.
caption: Packard DR-980 9-cylinder diesel aircraft engine
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