W. D. Oddy & Company

W. D. Oddy & Company Ltd
Industry Aerospace
Founded c. 1917
as limited liability company, October 1919
Founder William Davey Oddy
Headquarters Propeller Works, Leeds, United Kingdom
Products Aircraft propellers

W. D. Oddy & Company Ltd was a British manufacturer of wooden aircraft propellers, formed in 1919. The company was the main supplier of propellers to Blackburn Aircraft in the first half of the 1920s.[1]

History

Oddy worked with the early aircraft pioneer Robert Blackburn, founder of the Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Company. W. D. Oddy & Company were advertising their airscrews at least as early as 1917.[2] In 1919 Oddy patented a propeller copying and profiling machine. The limited liability company was formed in October 1919,[3] set up with £25,000 of share capital and Blackburn as co-director. In just over a year from its establishment, Oddy had been granted other patents concerning the design, making and finishing of propellers.[1]

Until the mid-1920s, W. D. Oddy & Co. was the main supplier of airscrews to Blackburn Aircraft.[1] They also provided propellers for other aircraft, including 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) diameter ones for the R38 class airship. These, built entirely from Honduras mahogany and fitted with a lightning conductor strip from tips to boss, were amongst the largest of their day. Another Oddy propeller took the Alliance-Napier Seabird, powered by a Napier Lion engine, from London to Madrid in less than 8 hours.[4]

In 1920 Oddy were developing a propeller with variable and reversible pitch.[4]

As well as making airscrews for propelling aircraft, W. D. Oddy also built them for other purposes. They saw a future for motor boats driven by aerial propellers and provided a four bladed airscrew for A. E. Guiness' Napier Lion powered boat Oma.[4] Other, smaller Oddy airscrews drove dynamos to provide electrical power.[5]

The company disappears from the records after about 1925; it may have been absorbed into Blackburns later.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ord-Hume, Arthur W.J.G. (2000). British Light Aeroplanes. Peterborough: GMS Enterprises. p. 601. ISBN 978-1-870384-76-6.
  2. ↑ "Oddy advertisement 1917". Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  3. ↑ "New companies registered". Flight. Vol. XI no. 42. 9 October 1919. p. 1356.
  4. 1 2 3 "Messrs. W. D. Oddy and Co., Ltd". Flight. Vol. XII no. 29. 15 July 1920. p. 776.
  5. ↑ "Oddy auxiliary propeller sale". Retrieved 12 January 2012.
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