Hendryx Corporation

The **Hendryx Corporation** is an American manufacturing and engineering company that has made automotive brake systems and components, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers. *Hendryx Electrodynamyx* was spun off as the main industrial arm of the company, while other divisions were created over time.

## History

Before World War 1, Darren Hendricks spent a few years in the business of making parts for bicycle and motorbike manufacturing as well as starter mechanisms. Over time he expanded the scope of operations to encompass many engineering solutions across a wide range of mechanical devices, from cars to aeroplanes. The company was properly established in South Bend, Indiana in 1924, with a 24% stake bought by ACA - not to operate Hendryx, but to maintain a direct and continuing contact with developments in aviation - as the engineering techniques of the automotive and aircraft world were quite similar. Hendryx in the 1920s owned and controlled many important patents for mechanisms applicable to the auto industry, for example, brakes, carburettors, and starting drives for engines. After the company was headed by an ACA executive and taking off brilliantly due to the streamlining of management, it went on to acquire smaller brake technology companies and supplied brakes for many cars and trucks for decades to come.

The *Aeronautyx* branch was the first major subgroup to be formed in the late 1920s, as it was responsible for the supplying of pressure carburettors and hydraulics systems as well as a wide variety of electrical and electronic instruments for aircraft. During the 1940s, as Hendryx became involved in military projects, a separate arm was created named *Hendryx Militryx* that designed, tested, and manufactured hydraulic components and systems. In the same facility, avionics and other electronic hardware were designed, manufactured, and documented in technical manuals, and for this reason, the *Aeronautyx* branch was absorbed within this. During World War 2, a radio division was established to make radio transmitter/receivers for aircraft and other types of avionics. Notably, this division is also completely responsible for the creation of the long-range surface-to-air RM08 Talon missile, from the telemetrics to the ramjet propulsion to the oscillators. Amongst other products they developed were radar detectors in aircraft that identified ground missile tracking, and ABS systems for military aircraft using established technology similar to what was already starting to be seen in cars.

Within the automotive industry, Hendryx introduced *Electricjector* in 1956, a true multipoint electronic fuel injection system, which was optional on several 1958 high-end car models and was first sighted in a limited run of Stallions. Within the next few years, they went on develop a *Twin-Servo* system that went on to become a standard for brake drums after being featured first, again, in Stallions equipped with a dual-circuit brake system. Hendryx is also credited with being the first to develop a fully computerized ABS system, appearing in 1971. Further attempts at EFI were made between 1975 and 1990, with the FENIX system being a notable success.

## Notable products

* Pressure carburettor (after the acquisition of Tornberg Carburettors)
* Novel brake and shoe drum brake design
* ACPI (Aircraft Continuous Pressure Injection): a further evolution of the pressure carburettor that eliminates the main jet, instead, metering fuel directly into cylinders by way of a splitter valve or flow divider out to a nozzle into each cylinder. Also incorporates a return-to-tank line. This was again further refined into the critically acclaimed ACPI-1 that eliminated the return-to-tank line and allowed for better fuel management. This time, it featured an inline stem-type regulator injection method.
* Electricjector electronic fuel injection (patents first licensed then later sold to Boscc in 1960, developed into D-Injectronic roughly around 1967)
* FENIX fuel system
* RM08 surface-to-air missile
* Twin-Servo: two tandem brake master cylinders, also allowing for a dual-circuit brake safety system.