Sewing machines, bicycles and fashion Lycoming dates its founding to 1845 by "
Madame Ellen Curtis Demorest". 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 took place in 1858, somewhat later than the purported date of establishment of the company. while her husband patented improvements to sewing machines 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 (in
Lycoming County). At the urging of the newly established Williamsport Board of Trade, citizens invested in the new manufacturing facility, which employed 250 people. With the development of the "New York Bicycle" in 1891 (designed by employee S. H. Ellis), the company diversified its product offerings. and during the early post-
World-War-I era, the company was a major supplier to Auburn (which produced the
Auburn,
Cord, and
Duesenberg lines). By 1920, Lycoming was producing 60,000 engines a year, with a 2,000-strong workforce. To handle the capacity, a new foundry complex was built in
Williamsport that year. There was apparently some interest in using it on the
Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber, but the 28-cylinder
Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major four-bank radial was used instead. Through the 1920s and -30s, Lycoming had still been supplying automotive manufacturers with engines. However, these clients each slowly went out of business or switched to
Continental engines for their vehicles. By 1931, the company was supplying automotive engines to only three companies:
Auburn,
Cord and
Duesenburg, still all under the control of
Cord. These companies closed their doors in 1937, after which Lycoming switched to exclusively designing and producing engines for aviation. In 1939 Cord re-organized all of his aviation holdings into the AVCO group, at which point the engine manufacturing company became "AVCO Lycoming". It also leased the government-owned
Stratford Army Engine Plant in
Stratford, Connecticut, and produced
Wright radials under license. After the war, this plant was converted to produce the
T53 turboshaft engine, one of its more successful designs. From this point on the piston and
turbine engine lines remained separate, with the piston lines being built in the original Williamsport factories, and turbines in Stratford. By 1961, Lycoming produced 600 to 700 engines per month. Many light aircraft are powered by versions of these engines, with power ratings in the range. Engines in this series also include the
O-235 four-,
O-580 six- and
O-720 eight-cylinder engines, and the advanced
turbocharged and
fuel-injected 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 problems and eventually it was abandoned. Another attempt to rescue Williamsport was made in introducing the "radical"
SCORE engine, a
Wankel engine originally developed through a joint venture between
Curtiss-Wright and
John Deere. Curtiss-Wright lost interest in the design just as it was maturing and sold its interests in the project to Deere, which brought in Lycoming to sell the developed engine into the aviation markets. It was guaranteed a startup run by
Cessna, also owned by Textron. Just as production was ready to start, Cessna announced it was halting its 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 1985. In 1994, Textron sold the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division, located in
Stratford, Connecticut, to
AlliedSignal, who merged it with the
Garrett Engine Division of AlliedSignal as part of AlliedSignal Aerospace, later becoming part of
Honeywell Aerospace in 1999. Textron retained piston engine production in Williamsport. Lycomings continue to power new light aircraft by fellow Textron division,
Cessna Aircraft, and by
Piper,
Cirrus,
Diamond, and others. Lycomings remain the most popular line of engines for U.S. Experimental / Amateur-Built (E/A-B) aircraft, surpassing the 5 next-most-popular brands, combined. ==Products==