July 2010 — For the past few years piston-engine giant Lycoming has been developing a new engine, the TEO-540-A1A. The designation is meaningful: It is a “turbocharged,” “electronic ignition” and “opposed” — nothing new there — version of the venerable 540-series Lycoming engine that has been a mainstay of the general aviation fleet for decades. Versions of the 540 power dozens of airplanes, from the Piper Saratoga to the Britten-Norman Islander, from the Cessna Turbo 206 to the Robinson R44 helicopter. The 540 is a tremendously durable and versatile engine.
It’s also the basis of the TEO-540-A1A, the first in a coming lineup of iE2 engines from Lycoming that takes the basic recipe for success of Lycoming engines — the 540 is, after all, essentially a six-cylinder version of the even more prolific four-cylinder 360-series Lyc — and transports that technology into the future by integrating electronic ignition and engine control into the design. The “iE2” brand name means “integrated electronic dual channel,” and an additional two channels are available and will doubtless be used in most production engines in certified applications.
