Gloucestershire-based Dowty Propellers (
www.dowty.com) has officially opened a new facility in Brockworth to provide a modern operation for the company’s development, manufacture and support of ‘state of the art’ propeller systems with all-composite blades.
The 183,000ft
2 site on Gloucester Business Park will house the full production process for the propeller systems, the design and engineering teams, the admin offices and the Dowty Propellers Repair and Overhaul (DPRO) centre.
The company’s propeller systems are used on turboprop and turboshaft engines to power regional airliners and military ‘airlifters’, along with amphibious aircraft and marine hovercraft.
The new Brockworth facility replaces Dowty Propellers’ original headquarters and blade-manufacturing facility in Gloucester, which was destroyed by fire in February 2015.
The company purchased new production equipment and created an interim blade-manufacturing facility in Mitcheldean.
This equipment is now being transferred to the new building at Brockworth, which is scheduled to become fully operational in the first half of 2020.
Additionally, the DPRO centre — previously operating at a separate location in Gloucester — will be integrated into the new facility.
There are also DPRO centres in the USA and Australia, as well as a team of global field service engineers.
Dowty Propellers’ president, Oliver Towers, said: “This inauguration of the new facility is a testament to our employees, who met the challenge of rebuilding Dowty Propellers from the ground up in what is widely seen as one of the most remarkable recoveries in the aviation industry.”
As a GE Aviation business, Dowty Propellers benefitted from its parent company’s resources in its post-fire recovery efforts.
Within hours of the 2015 fire, core teams were relocated to GE Aviation offices in Cheltenham, where they were provided with telephones and computers.