Avco Lycoming
| Founded | est. 1845 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Madame Ellen Curtis Demorest |
| Headquarters | Williamsport, Pennsylvania |
| Products | Aircraft engines |
| Parent | AVCO, Textron |
| Website | http://www.lycoming.com |
Lycoming is a major American manufacturer of aircraft engines. Headquartered in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Lycoming produces a line of horizontally opposed, air-cooled, four-, six- and eight-cylinder engines including the only FAA-certified aerobatic and helicopter piston engines on the market. The company has built more than 325,000 piston aircraft engines and powers more than half the world's general aviation fleet, both rotary and fixed wing. The company is currently part of Textron's Avco Corporation.
Lycoming claims to have been founded in 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). 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 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 (in Lycoming County). At the urging of the newly established Williamsport Board of Trade, citizens invested US$100, 000 in the new manufacturing facility, which employed 250 people. 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 machines, bicycles, typewriters, opera chairs and other products.
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