Talk:Dowty Propellers

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Still a company?

Looking at the external links on this article, it seems none at the company itself still work. The rest are historical articles, Wikipedia itself and business directories (themselves probably sourced from the same links).

Looking at Companies House, the only active Dowty companies are the social club (which is alive and well behind Messier-Dowty) and "DOWTY INTERNATIONAL LTD" in Swindon, which appears to be unrelated.

I think Dowty Rotol isn't a company today, and I would amend the article but felt that just declaring "Dowty Rotol was a company..." would be excessively harsh. Clearly the Staverton site is very much an active part of GE Aviation, but not a company in its own right. GE's own web site returns no hits at all for "Rotol", and suggests to me that they still use the Dowty brand on products at least, but have dropped "Rotol". I do feel that Wikipedia should reflect today's reality and not that of the 1960s and that we create unhealthy historical inertia by reporting as current things which once were. So for this reason I have tagged the article as out of date. "DR was a company... ...currently operates as..." might be a good solution, unless we can find a contemporary source citing it as a company proper. I also think it would be helpful if we knew if GE use the DR on new business, as this would mean the name lives on and is worthy of note.

Behind The Wall Of Sleep (talk) 11:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the tag. Looking at Companies House the entry for Dowty-Rotol under dissolved companies says 'CofN 6/4/1990' which I assume means 'change of name'. It all seems to come under 'Messier-Bugatti-Dowty Limited' now so I think Messier-Dowty is also out of date, the external links there are working through redirects. Just a matter of someone with better information or a trawl through the Flight International online archive to update these articles. No idea who or where the propellers are being made, assuming they still are! Cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 15:34, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added the logo, that shows the link with GE, although that may be out of date now. I suggest turning it into a historical article about Dowty at Staverton and innovations they made in propeller technology etc with a link to a separate GE Aviation article. Philafrenzy (talk) 15:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From what I have just read on the web GE took over the propeller side of things but still use the Dowty name (but not Dowty-Rotol) and Messier-Bugatti-Dowty produce just landing gear and brake systems (which clears things a bit). Strictly then this is an article about a defunct/dissolved company just due to a change of name (presumably to Dowty International Ltd). Since then the name must have changed again (GE Dowty Propellers?) but that seems to be more of a brand name than a company (parent being GE). I think it would be ok to record this company's history up to 1990 and continue with the modern history on the GE and/or Dowty pages with a summary of current ownership. I have a photo of the Dowty-Rotol logo on a propeller, don't think it's very good though. All good stuff. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TI Group took over Smiths Group (which had bought Dowty in 1992) and Smiths was apparently sold to GE in 2007, think I have that right but it's only according to WPs own articles (they are cited though). Had a look at the Flight archive, didn't find anything on company handovers but plenty of mentions of new aircraft into the late 1990s being fitted with Dowty Rotol props. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 16:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK then I've been Bold and changed it to past tense. I don't have the knowledge or background to fill in the gaps but at least what we've got now is currently accurate so far as we can tell. I also used a more specific location (Staverton) which is consistent with the historical accounts, and can't be confused with Smiths at Bishop's Cleeve Behind The Wall Of Sleep (talk) 10:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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