Highly Skilled Craftsmen & Engineers

All Dowty Group companies, employed  the best engineers in the country to produce and maintain their products.

Dowty Fuel Systems were no exception, from Design Engineers, to Craft Machinists, Service Engineers, Inspectors, Test Engineers, Metallurgists, Storemen, everyone had their role to carry out.

Skilled workers were required to deal with all facets of shaping, cutting and some aspects of forming metal. The operations most commonly performed by the craft machinists were jig boring, milling, drilling, turning, and grinding.

There were major challenges to overcome in the mid-late 1960’s, with the introduction of the metric system, until then the UK had its own imperial measurements, so machines had to be converted, draughtsmen had to start designing in metric and skilled machinists had to become accustomed with the new system, new tooling had to be acquired – craftsmen were never without their Zeus books!

Zeus Book

Dowty Machine Shops were also equipped with some of the most advanced machine tools of their era, skilled craftsmen had to adapt their skills to new technology as it was introduced.

 

Dowty Fuel Systems Machine Shop - Pictured: Larry Baker, Andy Phaure, Steve McIlroy, Arvind Patel, Steve Artus and Geoff Daff.
Dowty Fuel Systems Process Shop Jan1985 L-R: R Hughes , A Mc Gill, Roy Hopkins, D Butler, D Heath, P Mansfield
Dowty Fuel Systems - Machine Shop
TF30 fuel system for F111 Ardvark L-R Tony Lewis, Noel John, John Hardwick and Simon Tolley at 25 Site 1983-4.
Lee Clift on a Dixi 60 - 1994
Dowty Fuel Systems - SIMA Jig Borers, Machine Shop at Arle Court
Original photo in the Dowty archive at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub
Machine Shop - Profile Milling Ken Barnard
Original photo in the Dowty archive at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub
Dowty Fuel Systems - Electrical Workshop
Original photo in the Dowty archive at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub

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