The Airscrew Company Ltd (incorporating the Jicwood company) was a British manufacturing company based in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

manufacturing

propeller A propeller (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 a working flu ...

History

The Airscrew Company was established in

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

, Surrey, England in 1923 when John Dodds Titler bought the assets of Lang, Garnett and Company, otherwise known as the Lang Propeller Company of Riverside Works, Weybridge.

Lang Propellers Lang Propellers was a British company that manufactured aircraft propellers. The company operated independently from 1913 to 1936. History In 1909 Arthur Alexander Dashwood Lang became interested in aircraft propeller design and made some pro ...

was based at Hamm Moor Lane and at its peak supplied wooden

s to nearly every aeroplane company in England.

Alcock and Brown John Alcock and Arthur Brown were British aviators who, in 1919, made the first non-stop transatlantic flight. They flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, County Galway, Ireland. The Sec ...

flew the Atlantic in a

Vickers Vimy The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy bomber aircraft developed and manufactured by Vickers Limited. Developed during the latter stages of the First World War to equip the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), the Vimy was designed by Rex Pierson, Vickers ...

fitted with Lang propellers; a letter held at Chertsey Museum confirms this and one of these four-bladed propellers survives at

Brooklands Museum Brooklands Museum is a motoring and aviation museum occupying part of the former Brooklands Motor Course in Weybridge, Surrey, England. Formally opened in 1991, the museum is operated by the independent Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd, a private l ...

. The Lang company was absorbed into another aeronautical enterprise and vacated its works in Surrey. The company manufactured 2-blade wooden propellers for the early Spitfires and Hurricanes. Airscrew became a limited company in 1931, and by 1938 had formed Jicwood Ltd as a joint venture between Itself and Halila, Ltd., of Bush House, London. The nominal capital of £36,000 was taken up between the Airscrew Co. and Halila. The board consisted of Mr. J. D. Titler (chairman), Dr. Henry Charles Watts (co-designer of the Leitner Watts propeller), Mr. R. Bradfield and Mr. F. T. Swann. Mr. Swann, who was a director of Halila, Ltd., joined the board of The Airscrew Co.(Flight of 9 December 1937) The organisation employed around 200 staff at a site in Hamm Moor Lane,

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. Geography Addlesto ...

. By the beginning of World War II, the company was also making wooden-bladed ventilation fans and

wind tunnels A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

. Jicwood Ltd., the subsidiary company, manufactured fully compressed wood for various purposes. An extremely light sandwich material which consists of expanded rubber between either plywood or a light alloy were also manufactured. Samples of this product 24 ins. sq., weighing 52 ozs., were able to withstand a distributive load of 1 ½ tons when supported at two edges. The properties of this material were those required in aircraft flooring, bomb doors, superstructures and bulkheads for motor torpedo boats. Wartime production requirements raised staff numbers to nearly 2,000 by 1945, and the company had its own

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting ...

platoon, fire brigade and

St John's Ambulance St John Ambulance is an affiliated movement of charitable organisations in mostly Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries which provide first aid education and consumables and emergency medical services. St John organisations are primari ...

sections.

Post war work

Sheppard Robson Sheppard Robson (previously Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners) is a British architecture firm, founded in 1938 by Richard Sheppard (architect), Sir Richard Herbert Sheppard, with offices in London, Manchester, and Glasgow. It was particularl ...

the architectural firm founded by Richard Sheppard designed The Jicwood Bungalow in 1944 in response to the Need for temporary housing in the post war period and used materials such as stressed timber used in aircraft manufacture. The company diversified further and developed a wide range of products, notably aircraft an
Bus panels
and bulkheads, transit containers, ventilating equipment and

and most importantly laminate wood products, manufactured as 'Weyroc', and also glass fibre products. The company changed its name to The Airscrew Company and Jicwood Ltd in 1950. The company was bought by

Bryant & May Bryant & May was a British match manufacturer, which today exists only as a brand name owned by Swedish Match. The company was formed in the mid-19th century as a dry goods trader, with its first match works, the Bryant & May Factory, located ...

in 1957, shortly after J D Titler's death in April 1957. Under the terms of the agreement Bryant and May invested £500,000 in the company. Eoin Mekie, chairman of

British Aviation Services British Aviation Services Limited (Britavia) was an early post-World War II airline holding company and air transport operator that could trace its roots back to 1946.''Aircraft (Gone but not forgotten ... SILVER CITY)'', Vol 43, No 3, p. 41, Ian ...

, Frank Lynam became Managing Director (before joining the Airscrew Co., Lynam was with the firm of Metal Propellers Ltd, of Croydon, Surrey and the Airscrew section of the

RAE Rae may refer to: People *Rae (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Rae (surname), including a list of people with the surname Nicknames for *Rachel (given name) * Rachelle * Raquel * Raven (given name) * Reema *Reena ( ...

). Airscrew was approached by

Saunders-Roe Saunders-Roe Limited, also known as Saro, was a British aerospace and marine-engineering company based at Columbine Works, East Cowes, Isle of Wight. History The name was adopted in 1929 after Alliott Verdon Roe (see Avro) and John Lord took ...

in October 1958 for a fan design for the SR-N1hovercraft. Under Bryant & May ownership two associated companies were created; Airscrew-Weyroc Canada (a chipboard making facility) & Airscrew Fans Ltd. The company then passed into Swedish control when Bryant & May merged into

Swedish Match Swedish Match AB is a Swedish multinational tobacco company headquartered in Stockholm. It has been owned by the American Philip Morris International since 2022. The company manufactures snus, nicotine pouches, moist snuff, tobacco- and nicotine ...

.In 1961 the company changed its name to Airscrew -Weyroc Ltd (Weyroc being the trade title of their wood chipboard product). W.J.S. King-Smith became the managing director of the Fan Division until he retired (c.1973). In 1966 Airscrew-Weyroc Ltd, received an order for ten fans for the Anglo-French

Concorde Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

. These were required for cooling the electronic equipment on prototype aircraft and for ground testing work to meet the rigid requirements of the cooling specification-, they were of a compact, light-weight, low-noise, high-efficiency type. The company was bought by the Howden Group in c.1971, developing a range of fans for cooling and extraction purposes. In 1986, the Weybridge site was sold, demolished and redeveloped and Airscrew moved to 111 Windmill Road,

Sunbury on Thames Sunbury-on-Thames, known locally as Sunbury, is a town on the north bank of the River Thames in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, England, southwest of central London. Historically part of the county of Middlesex, in 1965 Sunbury and other su ...

. In December 1990 Airscrew Howden acquired Frazer-Nash Defence Systems for an undisclosed sum, following Frazer-Nash's entry into receivership. The Frazer-Nash Defence Systems division was sold in 1996 to ML Aviation

Marcel Lobelle Marcel Lobelle (–1967) was a Belgian aeronautical engineer who spent his professional career working in Britain. He was born in Kortrijk, Flanders, and fought in the Belgian Army at the start of World War I, with the 1st Regiment of Grenadier ...

. Around this time Weyroc products were manufactured in

Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administra ...

, Northumberland, with weyroc production having commenced on the site in 1964 and Weydec following shortly thereafter, and continue to be so since 1995 when Egger Uk Ltd. acquired Weyroc Ltd. The Airscrew CompanyAerospace and Defense – Product
Airscrew.co.uk. Retrieved 18 August 2011. became a principal subsidiary of the Airtechnology Group of the UK and has since been absorbed into

Ametek AMETEK, Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate and global designer and manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices with headquarters in the United States and over 220 sites worldwide. The company was founded in 1 ...

Inc's Aerospace & Defence division based at the Windmill Road site producing AC and DC brushless, mixed flow, tubeaxial and vaneaxial fans, high-pressure blowers, AC and DC brushless motors and drivecsystems, build-to-print and custom subassemblies, electronic and fault sensing devices, electric heaters, switches and sensors. Airscrew products have been used in various locomotives such as the

Gardermoen Oslo Airport () , alternatively referred to as Oslo Gardermoen Airport or simply Gardermoen, is an international airport serving Oslo, the capital and most populous city of Norway. The airport is the second largest in Scandinavia and the Nordi ...

High Speed Train and the

Eurostar Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, connecting Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The service is operated by the Eurostar Group which was formed from the merger of Eurostar, ...

train.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Airscrew Company, The Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies established in 1923 Aerospace companies of the United Kingdom Aircraft propeller manufacturers 1923 establishments in England

History

Post war work

See also

References