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Industry THE QUEST FOR EXCELLENCE

In honoring pioneer aviators and pioneer aviation industrialists, together with men of science and letter, a realization is born that the industry of 1968 is an impossibly complex amalgam of services. Yet the corporations pioneering these services have pride and historical joy, no less than individuals. Corporate pioneering is more of an evolutionary thing that an revolutionary one. In honoring the Honored Guests of Happenings and History, the corporate families amongst Windsong patrons suggest just how wide - and how lasting, the blue yonder really is.

[[image No. 151 - black & white photograph of four men next to a seaplane in factory]]

[[image - drawing of an early biplane (front view) ]]

[[image - drawing of a propeller]]

Avco Corporation

Avco Corporation's Lycoming Division turned to aviation in 1928, following a history of building superb automobile engines for such classics as Auburn, Duesenberg, and Locomobile. Its first engine, a nine cylinder, 215 horsepower radial design, was a powerplant that permitted a host of men and women to set new records, and kept such pioneers as Ludington Airlines, Boston & Maine Airways, and National Airlines in business. In 1933, Avco entered the aircraft propeller field and produced the first mechanical, controllable pitch device, known as the Lycoming-Smith prop. Lycoming has been a pioneer in virtually every new engine design for small aircraft, and a leader in helicopter powerplant design, as well. The world's first successful helicopter, designed, built, and flown by Igor Sikorsky, was powered by a Lycoming. Today, the company is the largest producer of helicopter engines in the world, and accounts for some fifty per cent of the engines produced for general aviation craft.

[[image No. 152 - black & white photograph of Lycoming powered Bellanca aircraft in the sky]]

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