Dowty Propellers is a British engineering company based in

Brockworth, Gloucestershire Brockworth is a village and parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England, situated on the old Roman road that connects the City of Gloucester with Barnwood. It is located 4 miles (6.5 km) southeast of central Gloucester ...

that specialises in the manufacture, repair and overhaul of

propellers A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

and propeller components for customers around the world. It is owned by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, forming part of its

GE Aviation Systems GE Aviation Systems (formerly Smiths Aerospace) is an American aerospace engineering, aircraft engine and aircraft parts manufacturer. Smiths Aerospace was formerly one of four business units of Smiths Group plc., an engineering company and cons ...

division.

History

The company was formed as Rotol Airscrews in 1937 by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

and Bristol Engines to take over both companies' propeller development,Gloucester Transport History
/ref> the market being too small to support more than one company. The name is a contraction of "ROlls-Royce" and "BrisTOL". Rotol's propellers were always considered leading edge, its models equipping the

Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...

Supermarine Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...

, and many other

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

-era aircraft. By the end of the war it had introduced the first five-bladed propeller to see widespread use, used on late-model Spitfires. In 1943 the company changed its name from Rotol Airscrews Limited to Rotol Limited, and in 1952 it acquired British Messier Limited, a specialist in landing gear and hydraulics. In 1958, Bristol Aeroplane and Rolls-Royce agreed to sell Rotol and British Messier to the

Dowty Group Dowty Group was a leading British manufacturer of aircraft equipment. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm ceased operating as an individual entity following its acquisition by T ...

. By 1959 Rotol and British Messier along with Dowty Equipment and Dowty Fuel Systems became part of the new Dowty Aviation Division based at Cheltenham. In 1968, the company introduced the first

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

propellers, which went on to see widespread use. Since then it has migrated to

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

, and remains a leader in propeller design. Following a series of changes of ownership, the original Dowty Rotol facility at Staverton is now owned by the

Safran Safran S.A. is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures aircraft engines, rocket engines as well as various aerospace and defense-related equipment or their components. It was formed by a merger between SNECMA and ...

Group, operating as part of its

Messier-Bugatti-Dowty Safran Landing Systems, formerly Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, is a French company involved in the design, development, manufacture and customer support of all types of aircraft landing gear, wheels and brakes and a wholly owned subsidiary of Safran S ...

Landing Gear subsidiary. Propeller design and manufacture was moved a few hundred metres down the road when the company was split into business units under its Dowty ownership in the early 1990s. On 16 January 2007, Dowty Propellers became part of

through GE buying

Smiths Group Smiths Group plc is a British, multinational, diversified engineering business headquartered in London, England. It operates in over 50 countries and employs 14,600 staff. Smiths Group has its origins in a jewellery shop, ''S Smith & Sons'', ...

’s aerospace division. On 5 February 2015, a fire at Dowty's Staverton facility caused severe damage to 80% of the factory building, destroying the main production line. A facility at Vantage Point Business Village in Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, was selected for the company's interim propeller blade manufacturing. In late 2019, the company began moving its operations to an all-new purpose-built facility at Gloucester Business Park in Brockworth, on part of the site of the former aerodrome used by the Gloster Aircraft Company.

Operations

Dowty propellers are used on many

turboprop A turboprop is a turbine engine that drives an aircraft propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction gearbox, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propelling nozzle. Air enters the intake and is compressed by the compressor. Fuel ...

feederliner A regional airliner or a feederliner is a small airliner that is designed to fly up to 100 passengers on short-haul flights, usually feeding larger carriers' airline hubs from small markets. This class of airliners is typically flown by the reg ...

s, including the

Bombardier Dash 8 The De Havilland Canada DHC-8, commonly known as the Dash 8, is a series of turboprop-powered regional airliners, introduced by de Havilland Canada (DHC) in 1984. DHC was later bought by Boeing in 1988, then by Bombardier in 1992; then by ...

Q400,

Saab 340 The Saab 340 is a Swedish twin-engine turboprop aircraft designed and initially produced by Saab AB and Fairchild Aircraft. It is designed to seat 30-36 passengers and, as of July 2018, there were 240 operational aircraft used by 34 different o ...

and

Saab 2000 The Saab 2000 is a twin-engined high-speed turboprop airliner built by Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab. It is designed to carry 50–58 passengers and cruise at a speed of . Production took place in Linköping in southern Sweden. The Saab ...

, and on turboprop

transport aircraft Transport aircraft is a broad category of aircraft that includes: * Airliners, aircraft, usually large and most often operated by airlines, intended for carrying multiple passengers or cargo in commercial service * Cargo aircraft or freighters, fix ...

such as later models of the C-130J and

Alenia C-27J The Alenia C-27J Spartan is a military transport aircraft developed and manufactured by Leonardo's Aircraft Division (formerly Alenia Aermacchi until 2016). It is an advanced derivative of Alenia Aeronautica's earlier G.222 (C-27A Spartan in ...

. Dowty propellers can also be found on

LCAC LCAC may refer to: Hovercraft * A generic term for an air cushioned landing craft, taken from US Navy designation "Landing Craft, Air Cushion". ** Landing Craft Air Cushion, a US Navy hull classification symbol for the Landing Craft Air Cushion-c ...

s used by the militaries of several countries. The US

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

's Udvar Hazy Center,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, has a Dowty propeller on display.

References

External links

Dowty Propellers official site

Information and pictures: Dowty Propellers
plant in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

, UK, from Smiths Aerospace web site.
Grace's Guide
"Dowty Rotol of Staverton, Churchdown" {{Dowty Group Aerospace companies of the United Kingdom Aircraft component manufacturers of the United Kingdom Aircraft propeller manufacturers British companies established in 1937 Companies based in Gloucestershire Engineering companies of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies established in 1937 Science and technology in Gloucestershire

History

Operations

See also

References

External links