Windsor Propeller Company
by Jay Smith
History
Fred Jamieson started Windsor Propeller Company in 1978. He became interested in aeromodeling through his family: his great-grandparents opened the first toy store in San Francisco, California, and his grandparents got him into modeling.
A stint as a drag racer helped open the door to a long career in aviation, because drag racers were being recruited as pilots. His jobs included:
- Navy test pilot
- Commercial airline pilot
- Crop duster
- Helicopter test pilot
While flying full-scale helicopters in Canada in the 1970s, Fred began carving propellers from maple in the wintertime. Teresa McTernan, Windsor Propeller Company president, describes his process:
"He originally made propellers from maple. He would say he could see the propeller in the block of maple. He would then use his grandfather’s spokeshave and some wood files and carve one half of a propeller. The propeller would just start to come out of the wood. He was amazing in the way he could carve in pitch."
Half of the propeller was carved so that both sides matched. Then a machine traced a pattern it could reproduce as a full propeller, to be used in an injection-molding machine.
Upon retiring from full-scale flying, Fred founded Windsor Propeller Company after seeing increased interest in his propellers and wanting to explore what was possible. He called the new propellers "Master Airscrews" (airscrew is another term for propeller). He named the company "Windsor" after the town in California where he lived.
Fred investigated injection molding and became a self-taught machinist and mold maker. He started by fabricating small 1/2A propellers and marketing them to hobby shops. He also attended flying events and contests to get his propellers into modelers' hands and eagerly sought feedback to improve the designs.
One major improvement came in 1980, when Windsor began selling fiberglass-filled nylon propellers. These did not require boiling (as some straight nylon propellers did), and the new airscrews avoided the brittleness associated with earlier variants.
Manufacturing process
Teresa explained the basic manufacturing process used at Windsor:
- Write a program to design the mold.
- Use a milling machine, driven by that program, to cut the mold.
- Do finishing work to prepare the mold for use, then test it.
- Produce propeller casts in halves and load them into an injection-molding machine.
- The injection-molding machine controls the amount of plastic, temperature, and pressure. Depending on propeller size and type, each molding cycle takes about 30–90 seconds.
- Run the propeller through a series of tests, including static thrust, balance, and durability.
- An engineer reviews the data to ensure the product meets specifications and standards.
- Give approved propellers to a group of beta testers for real-world use, mounted on a variety of aircraft.
Growth and legacy
When Teresa started working for Windsor in 1982, the company offered approximately 15 propellers and the five employees worked in one building. The 1980s brought growth both for the hobby and for the company. Fred continued to design all of the propellers, first carving them by hand and later using computer tools.
One project that excited him was a three-blade propeller molded with the hub. The design was more challenging, but the Master Airscrew three-blade propellers became one of the company’s best sellers. They proved popular even with electric-power pilots, despite being designed originally for glow engines.
By the time of Fred’s death on February 2, 2009, the company had gone global. It had grown to nine employees, greatly expanded its product offerings, and was producing approximately 250,000 propellers each year.
Teresa said the following about Fred’s accomplishments: "He raised the level of the hobby from where he found it as a young man flying model airplanes into adulthood. He contributed to it and improved it. He was a wonderful man to work for."
The company is now in the capable hands of its employees, many of whom have been with Windsor for more than a decade.
I asked Teresa what she was most proud of, and her response was: "I am proud of our company being committed to keeping it going for as long as people want to buy Master Airscrew propellers. We are inspired by Fred's life and want to keep his dream alive."
When we ended our interview, I reflected on Teresa's enthusiasm for the company and our hobby, and on her comment regarding modelers: "I have never met more regular, decent people than in modeling. Unbelievably nice people make working for the company awesome." I couldn't agree more.
MA
Jay Smith [email protected]
Sources
- Windsor Propeller Company
Box 250 Rancho Cordova, CA 95741 www.masterairscrew.com
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
