Lycoming O-540

The Lycoming O-540 is a family of air-cooled six-cylinder, horizontally opposed fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter engines of 541.5 cubic inch (8,874 cc) displacement, made by Lycoming Engines. The engine is a six-cylinder version of the four-cylinder Lycoming O-360.

Design and development

Generally these engines produce 230 to 350 horsepower. They are installed on a large number of different aircraft types. Their main competitive engine is the Continental IO-520 and IO-550 series.

The AEIO version was developed for high-performance competition aerobatics aircraft. Starting at 260 hp (190 kW), the power was then improved to 300 hp (220 kW). The AEIO-540 family has achieved tremendous results in competition aircraft such as the Extra 300, CAP 232, and Zivko Edge 540.

Variants

All engines have an additional prefix preceding the 540 to indicate the specific configuration of the engine. There are also numerous engine suffixes, denoting different accessories such as different manufacturers' carburetors, or different magnetos.