Aviation Engines
Lycoming

Founded originally in Williamsport around 1908, the company produced a range of engines for transport applications, in a very similar way to Continental. After becoming a subsidiary of the Auburn Motor Co (owned by E.L. Cord) it produced a range of small radial engines, leading in 1932 to its position as part of the Aviation Corporation. It produced the R-680 and R-530radial for many years up to the end of WW2.

Lycoming 75hp Aero Engine

Lycoming 75hp Aero Engine

The Lycoming Manufacturing Co was already established with a number of small engines for light aircraft when it got involved with the Army in 1932 on a project for a 12-cylinder liquid cooled flat-12 engine. While Continental had a greater degree of financial help from the Army, Lycoming put a lot of its own money into the project which as a result was to proceed at a greater pace than that of its rival.

Lycoming R-680 Radial Aero Engine

By 1935, a contract was placed by the Army, and after the single-cylinder tests were passed, the 0-1230 engine was started, based on a flat-12 layout to enable fitting inside a wing. Development was faster than the parallel Continental project, a fact that was commented on at the time by the Army.
The 0-1230 flew for the first time in 1938, installed in the nose of a Vultee XA-19A, originally designed for the R-1830. The 0-1230 passed its type tests at 1000hp in 1939, although it never made series production.
Another development, the H-2470, was to take up Lycoming's time and money, but it was another dead-end project as the Army and Nayy had standardised in big air-cooled radials for their aircraft, and none of the flat-12 or H engines ever realised production quantities. A last-gasp effort at big engines in 1941 was the XR-7755, a huge 36-cylinder 7755 cu in monster, it gave 5000 hp in 1944 and was aiming at 7000 hp, but propellor technology and the advent of the turbo-prop and turbo-jet effectively killed it off.
After WWII, the company concentrated on its engines for light aircraft, and is the largest producer of small air-cooled engines in the world today.

Lycoming R-680 Radial Aero Engine

Lycoming R-680 Radial Aero Engine

Lycoming R-680 Radial Aero Engine

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