Starting As A Metal Fabricating Plant Lycoming Produces Engines For All Markets Of Aviation

By Tom Woodward

Did you know that Lycoming Engines was started by a women? It's true. In 1845 Madam Ellen Curtis Demorest started, what is now called Lycoming Engines, as a metal fabrication plant. In 1888 local investors bought the facilities and named it the Demorest Fashion and Sewing Machine Company which produced sewing machines, bicycles, typewriters, duplicating machines, gas irons and printing presses. In 1891 a Demorest employee designed the bicycle which at the time sold for $85 to $125, a princely sum even then. Both sewing machines and bicycles were built in what is todays Lycoming engine plant and both can be seen at the Lycoming Pavilion. 

With the success and excitement of Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, Lycoming produced the first engine to be installed in a Beech-designed TravelAir biplane. The engine was a nine-cylinder, 215 horsepower R-680 radial. The engine went on to power the nation's earliest airlines. More than 25,000 R-680's were produced. Thousands of the R-680's flew in the armed services before and during WWII.

Further engine development spurred on by the wartime effort enabled Lycoming to produce the world's largest and most powerful reciprocating aircraft engine, the XR-7755. The engine was a 36-cylinder, single-crankshaft, liquid-cooled, radial type power plant designed to generate 5,000 horsepower. The experimental XR-7755 engine, designed for the B36 bomber, never flew and is now displayed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. 

In 1938, Lycoming introduced the O-145, which became one of the first modern, high performance light aircraft engines.  In 1939, a 75-horse-powered version of the O-145 powered Igor Sikorsky first helicopter. Lycoming engines also made their way into automobiles where they powered the 1935 Auburn 851 Cabriolet Rumbelseat with a Lycoming Flathead Straight 8 Engine making 115 horsepower, which can also be seen at the Lycoming Pavilion.

Over the years Lycoming has built in excess of 325,000 engines of which about 200,000 are still in service. Lycoming currently builds air-cooled, horizontally opposed, four, six, and eight cylinder engines available with power ratings from 100 to 400 horsepower. In addition the company provides Experimental engines under the Thunderbolt brand. Lycoming produces the only FAA certified aerobatics engines. 

Lycoming's iE2, single button start system allows you to start your engine while the controlling module manages your mixture and propeller automatically. Currently available on the Thunderbolt engines, Lycoming hopes to have it certified in the near future. 

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(Staff images)

FMI: www.lycoming.com