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Ultimate Issue: Ly-Con Still Going Strong

A visit to Visalia, California, finds the aircraft engine builder near perfect but nothing fancy.

Ken Tunnell (seated) is the fuel and spark at Ly-Con, and brother Bryan oversees the vital inspection and assembly shop. [Tom Wilson/KITPLANES]
Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Founded in 1980 by Ken Tunnell, Ly-Con Aircraft Engines established its reputation through an obsessive commitment to precision, meticulous measurement, and continuous process improvement, ensuring the quality and reliability of its engines.
  • The company became a leading builder of high-performance horizontally opposed aircraft engines, renowned for powering successful aerobatic acts and air racing teams, with lessons learned from performance applications benefiting all their engine builds.
  • Ly-Con maintains extensive in-house capabilities, including advanced machining, dyno testing, wet flow benches, and specialized processes like cryogenic treatment, enabling strict quality control and pushing the boundaries of engine development for both certified and experimental applications.
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If it weren’t for the snow-capped Sierra Nevada’s floating distantly in the haze, Visalia, California, might pass for Kansas.

The terrain is unremittingly flat, the roads checkerboard at right angles, and farming is what matters. Irrigation ditches and muddy tracks entering and then tapering off on the county roads are too numerous to notice, and the vastness in the crop rows and vault of open sky keeps human activity properly scaled inside nature’s expanse.

Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson got into general aviation in 1973 after pumping avgas and waxing flight school airplanes, but the lure of racing cars and motorcycles sent him down a motor journalism career heavy on engines and racing. Today he flies for fun in a Starduster and a shared Cessna 140A.

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