The first diesel powered aircraft were designed and manufactured in 1920-1930. They were never widely used, but they have seen a comeback over the last decade. Several companies have made, and are continuing to develop new diesel engines for this purpose. Designers today don't use automotive diesel engines, but are instead designing engines specifically for aircraft purposes. For example, France's SMA Engines designed the SR305-230 four-stroke, air-cooled, turbo diesel engine. This engineering team came from Renault Sport of Formula 1. The 230 hp (170 kW), 305 cubic inch (5.0 liter) jet fuel engine is now certified as retrofit on several Cessna 182 models in Europe and the USA.

In another type of aircraft, reversible diesel engines propelled the hydrogen-filled zeppelin airships LZ 129 Hindenburg and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II. These were versatile engines. It took less than a minute for the zeppelins to go from full power forward to a full stop, and back to full power in reverse.