The Packard 1A-2500 is an American V-12

liquid-cooled Liquid cooling refers to cooling by means of the convection or circulation of a liquid. Examples of liquid cooling technologies include: * Cooling by convection or circulation of coolant, including water cooling * Liquid cooling and ventilat ...

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years ma ...

Packard Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Th ...

in 1924 as a successor to the World War I-era

Liberty L-12 The Liberty L-12 is an American water-cooled 45° V-12 aircraft engine displacing and making designed for a high power-to-weight ratio and ease of mass production. It saw wide use in aero applications, and, once marinized, in marine use both ...

. Five aero variants were produced, of which the 3A-2500 was the most numerous. Three marine versions, used most prominently in American World War II

PT-boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the w ...

s, the ''3M-2500'', ''4M-2500'', and ''5M-2500'', were also derived from it.

Applications

* Boeing TB *

Heinkel HE 8 The Heinkel HE 8 was a reconnaissance floatplane built in Germany in the late 1920s. It was developed at the request of the Danish Navy, which had noted the success of the HE 5 in Swedish service, and wished to purchase a similar aircraft as wel ...

Martin T3M The Martin T3M was an American torpedo bomber of the 1920s. A single-engined three-seat biplane, it became a standard torpedo bomber of the U.S. Navy, operating from both land bases and from aircraft carriers from 1926 to 1932. Development and ...

Naval Aircraft Factory PN The Naval Aircraft Factory PN was a series of open cockpit American flying boats of the 1920s and 1930s. A development of the Felixstowe F5L flying boat of the First World War, variants of the PN were built for the United States Navy by Douglas, ...

Huff-Daland LB-1 The Huff-Daland LB-1 was an American biplane light bomber aircraft operated by the United States Army Air Service in the 1920s. Derived from the XLB-1 prototype bought by the Army in 1923, the LB-1 development aircraft was powered by a single P ...

* PT boats - marine versions of the 3M/4M/5M-2500 * Packard-Bentley one-off race car *

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...

World War II

torpedo boats A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of s ...

and sub-chasers, which were fitted with 535 4M-2500 engines with W-8 modification under

Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

Variants

;1A-2500:1924, 800 hp. Six built. ;2A-2500 :1925, 800 hp. 75 built. ;2A-2540:?

Huff-Daland XHB-1 The Huff-Daland XHB-1 "Cyclops" was a 1920s American prototype heavy bomber designed and built by the Huff-Daland company.Andrade 1979, p 128 Design and development The XHB-1 was designed as an enlarged version of the earlier LB-1 LB-1 ...

;3A-2500:1926, Geared propeller drive option, 800 hp. 175 built. ;4A-2500:1927, fitted with a

supercharger In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced indu ...

, 900 hp. One built. ;5A-2500:1930, experimental use only, 1500 hp. One built. ;3M-2500:Marine version ;4M-2500:Marine version, 1200 hp (895 kW), subsequently upgraded in stages to 1500 hp (1,150 kW). ;5M-2500:Marine version, larger supercharger, aftercooler, and power output of 1850 hp

Engines on display

* A Packard 3A-2500 is on display at the

National Museum of the United States Air Force The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is the ...

. * A Packard 3A-2500 is in storage at the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the N ...

. * A Packard 3A-2500 is on display at the

New England Air Museum The New England Air Museum (NEAM) is an American aerospace museum located adjacent to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. The museum consists of three display hangars with additional storage and restoration hangars. Its co ...

. * A Packard 4M-2500 is on display at the

Packard Proving Grounds The Packard Proving Grounds (the remains of which are now called the Packard Proving Grounds Gateway Complex), was a proving ground established in Shelby Charter Township, Michigan in 1927 by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit. It is listed ...

Historical Site in Shelby Twp., Michigan. * A Packard Series 142 Diesel Model 1D-1700 is on display at the

Historical Site in Shelby Twp., Michigan. * Three working Packard 5M-2500s are installed the only operational PT boat, Higgins '' PT-658'' in Portland, Oregon.

Specifications (1A-2500)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Gunston, Bill. ''World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines''. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989.
Aircraft Engine Historical Society - Packard Engines
* Matthews, Birch. ''Race With the Wind''. Osceola, WI. MBI Publishing, 2001.

External links

Packard 3A-2500
–

{{DEFAULTSORT:Packard 1a-2500 1920s aircraft piston engines 1A-2500