Lycoming Engines
Encyclopedia
Lycoming Engines is a U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 aircraft engine
Aircraft engine
An aircraft engine is the component of the propulsion system for an aircraft that generates mechanical power. Aircraft engines are almost always either lightweight piston engines or gas turbines...

 company, known primarily for its general aviation
General aviation
General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...

 engine
Engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert energy into useful mechanical motion. Heat engines, including internal combustion engines and external combustion engines burn a fuel to create heat which is then used to create motion...

s. For most of its history Lycoming has been part of the AVCO group
Avco
Avco Corporation is a subsidiary of Textron which operates Textron Systems Corporation and Lycoming.-Brief history:The Embry-Riddle Company created the Aviation Corporation in 1928 as a holding company tasked with acquiring small airlines...

 as AVCO Lycoming. In 1987 AVCO was purchased by Textron
Textron
Textron is a conglomerate that includes Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Cessna Aircraft Company, and Greenlee, among others. It was founded by Royal Little in 1923 as the Special Yarns Company, and is headquartered at the Textron Tower in Providence, Rhode Island, United States.With total revenues of...

 to become Textron Lycoming. In 2002, the company was renamed Lycoming Engines.

Sewing machines, bicycles and fashion

Lycoming claims to have been founded in 1845 by "Madame Ellen Curtis Demorest
Ellen Louise Demorest
Ellen Louise Demorest was a US fashion arbiter. She was a successful milliner who widely credited for inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns. With her husband, William Jennings Demorest, she established a company to sell the patterns, which were adaptations of the latest French...

", however, the early history of the company (especially prior to 1860) is unclear. (Biographer Ishbel Ross notes that the marriage of Ellen Louise Curtis to William Jennings Demorest
William Jennings Demorest
right|thumb|325px|William Jennings Demorest , from New York City, was an American magazine publisher, national prohibition leader, and, in collaboration with his second wife, Ellen Demorest, née Curtis, attained international success from his wife's development of paper patterns for sewing fashion...

 took place in 1858, somewhat later than the purported date of establishment of the company.) In New York, New York, between c. 1860 and 1887, the Demorests published fashion magazines and operated the Demorest Fashion and Sewing-Machine Company (sometimes known as the Demorest Manufacturing Company) producing "Madame Demorest" and "Bartlett & Demorest" sewing machines and selling Ellen Demorest's innovative paper patterns for dressmaking. During this period, Ellen Demorest patented several fashion accessories, while her husband patented improvements to sewing machines and an apparatus for the vulcanization
Vulcanization
Vulcanization or vulcanisation is a chemical process for converting rubber or related polymers into more durable materials via the addition of sulfur or other equivalent "curatives." These additives modify the polymer by forming crosslinks between individual polymer chains. Vulcanized material is...

 of rubber.
Around 1883, Gerrit S. Scofield & Frank M. Scofield (advertising agents from New York) bought the Demorest brand and the sewing machine business (the Demorests retained the magazine business), and constructed a factory in Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Williamsport is a city in and the county seat of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. In 2009, the population was estimated at 29,304...

 (in Lycoming County
Lycoming County, Pennsylvania
-Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Plateau:Lycoming County is divided between the Appalachian Mountains in the south, the dissected Allegheny Plateau in the north and east, and the valley of the West Branch Susquehanna River between these.-West Branch Susquehanna River:The West Branch of the...

). At the urging of the newly-established Williamsport Board of Trade, citizens invested into the new manufacturing facility, which employed 250. The factory produced 50 to 60 sewing machines per day, and the company sold them for between US$19.50 and US$55.00 each.
With the development of the "New York Bicycle" in 1891 (designed by employee S. H. Ellis), the company diversified its product offerings. Until the early 1900s, the factory produced sewing machine
Sewing machine
A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch fabric, cards and other material together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies...

s, bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

s, typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

s, opera chairs and other products.

Engine manufacture

By 1907, the manufacture of sewing machines had become unprofitable for Demorest, and the company was sold and restructured as the Lycoming Foundry and Machine Company, shifting its focus toward automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 engine manufacture. In 1910, the company supplied its first automobile engine to Velie
Velie
Velie was a brass era American automobile brand produced by the Velie Motors Corporation in Moline, Illinois from 1908 to 1928. The company was founded by and named for Willard Velie, a maternal grandson of John Deere....

, and during the early post-World-War-I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 era, the company was a major supplier to Auburn (which produced the Auburn
Auburn Automobile
Auburn was a brand name of American automobiles produced from 1900 through 1936.-Corporate history:The Auburn Automobile Company grew out of the Eckhart Carriage Company, founded in Auburn, Indiana, in 1875 by Charles Eckhart...

, Cord
Cord Automobile
Cord was the brand name of a United States automobile, manufactured by the Auburn Automobile Company from 1929 through 1932 and again in 1936 and 1937....

, and Duesenberg
Duesenberg
Duesenberg was an Auburn, Indiana based American luxury automobile company active in various forms from 1913 to 1937, most famous for its high-quality passenger cars and record-breaking racing cars.-History:...

 lines). Eventually Lycoming became Auburn's principal supplier, and in 1927 Errett Lobban Cord
Errett Lobban Cord
Errett Lobban "E. L." Cord was a leader in United States transport during the early and middle 20th century.Cord founded the Cord Corporation in 1929 as a holding company for over 150 companies he controlled, mostly in the field of transportation...

 bought the company, placing it under his Auburn Manufacturing umbrella group. Among the engines Lycoming produced for Cord was a L-Head straight 8 of 298.5 cu. in. displacement which produced 125 h.p. This was used in the Cord L-29. Lycoming also produced a double overhead cam straight 8 used in the legandary Duesenberg J series. This powerplant produced 265 horsepower, six times the power of a contemporary Model A ford. A supercharged version, generating 325 horsepower, was intalled in the Duesenberg SJ and SSJ models. In 1929, Lycoming produced its first aviation engine, the nine-cylinder R-680
Lycoming R-680
|-See also:-External links:...

 radial
Radial engine
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel...

. This was a fairly successful design, and was used widely in light aircraft
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

, including Cord's Travel Air
Travel Air
The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas in the United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.-Company history:...

.

In the 1930s, Lycoming made a number of attempts to develop successful high-power aircraft engines. The O-1230
Lycoming O-1230
|-References:* White, Graham, Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of World War II, SAE International, 1995* Balzer, Gerald C., American Secret Pusher Fighters of World War II, Specialty Press. 2008...

 was Lycoming's attempt to produce an engine based on the USAAC's hyper engine
Hyper engine
The hyper engine was a 1930s study project by the United States Army Air Corps to develop a high-performance aircraft engine that would be equal to or better than the aircraft and engines then under development in Europe...

 concept, and used a variety of features to produce nearly of engine displacement
Engine displacement
Engine displacement is the volume swept by all the pistons inside the cylinders of an internal combustion engine in a single movement from top dead centre to bottom dead centre . It is commonly specified in cubic centimeters , litres , or cubic inches...

. However, by the O-1230's entry into service, it had been surpassed by other designs and the investment was not recouped. Another attempt was made to rescue the design by stacking two O-1230s to make the H engine
H engine
An H engine is an engine configuration in which the cylinders are aligned so that if viewed from the front, they appear to be in a vertical or horizontal letter H....

 H-2470
Lycoming H-2470
|-See also:-References:* White, Graham, Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of World War II, SAE International, 1995* Balzer, Gerald C., American Secret Pusher Fighters of World War II, Specialty Press...

 but the only design to use it, the P-54
XP-54 Swoose Goose
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Balzer, Gerald H. American Secret Pusher Fighters of World War II: XP-54, XP-55, and XP-56. North Branch, Minnesota: Specialty Press, 2008. ISBN 1-58007-125-2....

, never entered production. The Curtiss XF14C was originally intended to be powered by the H-2470, but the engine's poor performance led to the adoption of an alternative radial engine on the prototype. (The XF14C did not enter production.)

Undeterred by the O-1230/H-2470's failure, Lycoming turned to an even larger design, the R-7755, the largest aviation piston engine ever built. This design also experienced problems, and was only ready for use at the very end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when the aviation world was turning to jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

s to power future large aircraft. There was apparently some interest in using it on the Convair B-36
Convair B-36
The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" was a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated solely by the United States Air Force from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engine aircraft ever made. It had the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built , although there have...

 bomber
Bomber
A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping bombs on them, or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.-Classifications of bombers:...

, but the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 was used instead.

In 1939 Cord re-organized all of his aviation holdings into the AVCO group, at which point the engine manufacturing company became "AVCO Lycoming". They also leased the government-owned Stratford Army Engine Plant
Stratford Army Engine Plant
The Stratford Army Engine Plant was a U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command installation and manufacturing facility located in Stratford, Connecticut, where it was sited along the Housatonic River and Main Street, opposite Sikorsky Airport....

 in Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639....

 and produced Wright
Curtiss-Wright
The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States at the end of World War II, but has evolved to largely become a component manufacturer, specializing in actuators, aircraft controls, valves, and metalworking....

 radials under license. After the war, this plant was converted to produce the T53
Lycoming T53
-External links:* *...

 turboshaft
Turboshaft
A turboshaft engine is a form of gas turbine which is optimized to produce free turbine shaft power, rather than jet thrust...

 engine, one of their more successful designs. From this point on the piston and turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...

 engine lines remained separate, with the piston lines being built in the original Williamsport factories, and turbines in Stratford.

Their most successful post-war products were a series of air-cooled flat-4
Flat-4
A flat-4 or horizontally opposed-4 is a flat engine with four cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase...

 and flat-6
Flat-6
A flat-6 or horizontally opposed-6 is a flat engine with six cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of three cylinders on each side of a central crankcase...

 general aviation
General aviation
General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...

 engines. Most famous among these are the O-235
Lycoming O-235
The Lycoming O-235 is a family of four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed piston aircraft engines that produce , derived from the earlier O-233 engine....

 and O-360 four-cylinder engines, and the O-540
Lycoming O-540
|-Specifications :-See also:-External links:...

 six-cylinder engine. Many light aircraft are powered by versions of these engines, with power ratings in the range. Engines in this series also include the O-320
Lycoming O-320
The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of 92 different normally aspirated, air-cooled, four-cylinder, direct-drive engines commonly used on light aircraft such as the Cessna 172 and Piper Cherokee. Different variants are rated for 150 or 160 horsepower...

 four-, O-580
Lycoming O-580
Lycoming O-580 can refer to:* Lycoming GSO-580, a 1950s era, geared supercharged, eight cylinder airplane and helicopter engine, including the SO-580 and VSO-580 series....

 six- and O-720 eight-cylinder engines, and the advanced turbocharged and fuel-injected
Fuel injection
Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....

  TIGO-541 variant of the venerable (carbureted) O-540.

In the early 1980s, the general aviation market suddenly diminished and Lycoming's piston engine business was significantly impacted. Attempts were made to move some of the turbine production to Williamsport but this led to a series of quality control
Quality control
Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...

 problems and eventually it was abandoned.

Another attempt to rescue Williamsport was made in introducing the "radical" SCORE engine, a Wankel engine
Wankel engine
The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons. Its four-stroke cycle takes place in a space between the inside of an oval-like epitrochoid-shaped housing and a rotor that...

 originally developed in a partnership between Curtiss-Wright
Curtiss-Wright
The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States at the end of World War II, but has evolved to largely become a component manufacturer, specializing in actuators, aircraft controls, valves, and metalworking....

 and John Deere
John Deere
John Deere was an American blacksmith and manufacturer who founded Deere & Company, one of the largest and leading agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers in the world...

. Curtiss-Wright lost interest in the design just as it was maturing and sold it to Deere, who brought in Lycoming to sell into the aviation markets. They were guaranteed a startup run by Cessna
Cessna
The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Their main products are general aviation aircraft. Although they are the most well known for their small, piston-powered aircraft, they also produce business jets. The company is a subsidiary...

, also owned by Textron. Just as production was ready to start, Cessna announced they were halting their small-aircraft business for an indefinite period, and SCORE was cancelled. The remains of the Deere licenses were later purchased by Rotary Power International, which briefly produced a version.

Textron purchased the company in 1986. In 1994, Textron sold the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division, located in Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639....

 to AlliedSignal
AlliedSignal
AlliedSignal was an aerospace, automotive and engineering company that acquired and merged with Honeywell for $15 billion in 1999, after which the new group adopted the Honeywell name.AlliedSignal was created through a 1985 merger of Allied Corp...

, who merged it with the Garrett Engine Division of AlliedSignal
Garrett AiResearch
Garrett AiResearch was a manufacturer of turboprop engines and turbochargers, and a pioneer in numerous aerospace technologies. It was previously known as Aircraft Tool and Supply Company, Garrett Supply Company, AiResearch Manufacturing Company, or simply AiResearch...

 as part of AlliedSignal Aerospace, later becoming part of Honeywell Aerospace
Honeywell Aerospace
Honeywell Aerospace is a major provider of aircraft engines, APUs, avionics, and other systems in the aerospace industry. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, it is a division of the Honeywell International conglomerate.-Aircraft engines:...

 in 1999. Textron retained piston engine production in Williamsport.

Engines

The aircraft piston engine prefixes are:.
  • AE—Aerobatic (wet sump)
  • H—Horizontal Helicopter
  • I—Fuel Injected
  • L—Left Hand Rotation Crankshaft
  • O—Opposed Cylinders
  • T—Turbocharged
  • G—Geared (reduction gear)
  • V—Vertical installation for helicopters
  • S—Supercharged

Piston engines

  • Lycoming R-680
    Lycoming R-680
    |-See also:-External links:...

    , 9-cylinder radial, 1929, , Lycoming's first engine (4.625 inch diameter x 4.5 inch stroke x 9 cyls = 680.41 in3)
  • Lycoming O-145
    Lycoming O-145
    -External links:...

    , 4-cylinder, 1938, (3.625x3.5=144.49/2.37 L)
  • Lycoming IO-233-LSA, 4-cylinder, , announced 2008 (probable certification
    Type certificate
    A Type Certificate, is awarded by aviation regulating bodies to aerospace manufacturers after it has been established that the particular design of a civil aircraft, engine, or propeller has fulfilled the regulating bodies' current prevailing airworthiness requirements for the safe conduct of...

     in 2009
  • Lycoming O-235
    Lycoming O-235
    The Lycoming O-235 is a family of four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed piston aircraft engines that produce , derived from the earlier O-233 engine....

    , 4-cylinder, , introduced in 1940 and still produced, widely used on the Cessna 152
    Cessna 152
    The Cessna 152 is an American two-seat, fixed tricycle gear, general aviation airplane, used primarily for flight training and personal use.-Development:...

     and similar GA designs
  • Lycoming O-290
    Lycoming O-290
    |-References:...

    , 4-cylinder, , downsized version of the 435 introduced in 1942 and largely ignored for aviation use, but widely used in ground-power carts sold to the US military
  • Lycoming O-320
    Lycoming O-320
    The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of 92 different normally aspirated, air-cooled, four-cylinder, direct-drive engines commonly used on light aircraft such as the Cessna 172 and Piper Cherokee. Different variants are rated for 150 or 160 horsepower...

    , 4-cylinder, , used on Cessna 172
    Cessna 172
    The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is a four-seat, single-engine, high-wing fixed-wing aircraft. First flown in 1955 and still in production, more Cessna 172s have been built than any other aircraft.-Design and development:...

  • Lycoming O-340
    Lycoming O-340
    |-See also:...

    , 4-cylinder
  • Lycoming O-360, 4-cylinder, introduced in 1955 and widely used ever since, formed the basis for the 540 and 720
  • Lycoming TIO-360-EXP, 4-cylinder, , announced 2008, non-certified turbocharged engine for homebuilding use
  • Lycoming IO-390, 4-cylinder, , announced (probable certification in late 2008)
  • Lycoming O-435, 6-cylinder, , also developed as a tank engine
  • Lycoming O-480, 6-cylinder
  • Lycoming O-540
    Lycoming O-540
    |-Specifications :-See also:-External links:...

    , 6-cylinder, , widely used on the Piper Navajo
    Piper PA-31 Navajo
    The Piper PA-31 Navajo is a family of cabin-class, twin-engine aircraft designed and built by Piper Aircraft for the general aviation market, most using Lycoming engines. It was also licence-built in a number of Latin American countries. Targeted at small-scale cargo and feeder liner operations and...

    , Comanche
    Piper PA-24 Comanche
    The Piper PA-24 Comanche is a four-seat, low-wing, all-metal, light aircraft of monocoque construction with retractable landing gear that was first flown in May 1956 according to a Piper Aircraft Company press release...

    , etc.
  • Lycoming TIO-541, 6-cylinder, improved 540, featuring turbocharging on all models
  • Lycoming IO-580, 6-cylinder, , engine introduced in 1997
  • Lycoming GSO-580, 8-cylinder, original "580", produced from 1948 to 1961
  • Lycoming IO-720, 8-cylinder, 400 hp engine introduced in 1961
  • Lycoming O-1230
  • Lycoming H-2470

Turbine engines

  • Lycoming T53
    Lycoming T53
    -External links:* *...

    , turboshaft, , used on the Bell UH-1 "Huey" and others.
  • Lycoming T55, turboshaft, , used on the CH-47 Chinook
    CH-47 Chinook
    The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is an American twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter. Its top speed of 170 knots is faster than contemporary utility and attack helicopters of the 1960s...

    .
  • Lycoming PLF1, the first high-bypass turbofan designed in the US; not produced
  • Lycoming LTS101/LPT101, turboshaft and turboprop
  • Lycoming ALF 502
    Honeywell ALF 502
    |-See also:-References:Bibliography-External links:* *...

    , turbofan, based on the T55 turboshaft, used on the BAe 146
    BAe 146
    The British Aerospace 146 is a medium-sized commercial airliner formerly manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2002. Manufacture of an improved version known as the Avro RJ began in 1992...

     and Bombardier Challenger 600
    Bombardier Challenger 600
    The Bombardier Challenger 600 series is a family of business jets designed by Bill Lear and produced first by Canadair until that company was bought by Bombardier Aerospace in 1986.-Development:...

    .
  • Lycoming AGT1500, turboshaft, , used on the M1 Abrams
    M1 Abrams
    The M1 Abrams is a third-generation main battle tank produced in the United States. It is named after General Creighton Abrams, former Army Chief of Staff and Commander of US military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972. The M1 is a well armed, heavily armored, and highly mobile tank designed for...

    .
  • Lycoming TF-40 marine gas turbine for the USN's LCAC hovercraft.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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