WATTS PROPELLERS

Top left Grebe prop boss. top right Vickers crayford logo.
Middle left,Vickers FB14 prop, with DH4 boss below prop tip. Broken Nieuport prop under Fb14 . Middle right Hart prop boss
Bottom left rear of grebe boss. The photo of the Singapore prop did not come out very good. Will post more pic’s soon

Excellent – thanks for posting these. I assume the complete one on the wall is the Singapore prop – or is it from the FB14? Nice to see the early Vickers logo on the latter anyway – you would of course have had the Airscrew company’s equivalent transfers on the other props before they were cropped.

pictures as promised

Thanks – I look forward to seeing your photos, especially one of that FB14 prop as I’d not realised that Vickers made their own props too.

Many thanks for the information. The Singapore 111 prop is 12ft6ins. The prop boss’s are around 2ft.

I take it you’re going to lengthen the Luton Minor’s undercarriage legs then!! 😀

Many thanks for the information. The Singapore 111 prop is 12ft6ins. The prop boss’s are around 2ft. I will post some some photo’s. Plus one of my Vickers FB14 prop made by Vickers at Crayford

It used to be in Weybridge, Surrey – on what used to be known as the Weybridge Trading Estate – and the company was The Airscrew Company. Dr H C Watts had joined them as Technical Director by the early 1930s and presumably designed the Watts propeller. Among their many customers was Amy Johnson and I believe the R101 airship team.

The factory closed and was demolished in the late 1980s when the business – now named Airscrew Howden – relocated to nearby Sunbury on Thames, although they had long since ceased making wooden props by then. Luckily I had the chance to look around the site just before closure in 1987 but found little evidence of their former products.

How large are your prop bosses and the Singapore one especially? Any chance of posting some pics?