DEEZIL!
TINY DIESEL RC PLANE ENGINE
BY JIM ALLEN
VINTAGE SMOKE
Deezil: The diesel engine that lives in infamy! The manufacturing year of this engine is unknown, but it comes from the most infamous years. Owned by Dan Badger, curator of the America’s Packard Museum in Dayton, Ohio, it’s shown nestled in the valley of a legendary full-sized aircraft engine, the Packard Merlin. Badger, a private pilot as well as an RC aircraft modeler, keeps the engine as a curiosity piece. He’s never tried to start it, saying he doesn’t want to blow it up… assuming it would even start. The bronze flywheel is there to simulate the weight of a propeller, leading one to conclude this engine may have actually run at some point.
Tiny houses. Tiny cars. Tiny diesels. Now you’ve seen it all. We’ll bet you didn’t know that diesel engines have long been a part of the model aircraft world. In the early days of the hobby before World War II, the intricate spark-ignition engines were the most costly part. Simplified engines didn’t enter the market in a big way until after WWII, and here comes the diesel content. WWII saw advanced diesel engine technology and exposed many more people to it, so it was no wonder the model aircraft engine hobby took a stab at downsizing it once the war was over.