Seeking info on Remington Rand (Hamilton Standard)

[SRHFLY]

Hello Warbird fans!

I recently discovered that my Grandfather worked at the Remington Rand Propeller plant in Johnson City NY during WWII. As I understand it, Remington Rand is under license from Hamilton Standard to build and test a variety of propellers, mostly for the F4U Corsair and B-17 Fortress. After some Google searching, it appears roughly 65k propellers were made at this plant but not much else is out there, or I'm not looking for the right references.

I haven't found a single picture of a propeller that has a Hamilton Standard decal citing "Remington Rand". There are numerous pictures of decals from Windsor Locks CT, East Hartford CT, Pittsburgh PA.

So, I was hoping someone on this forum could help solve some of the mystery ...

1. Did Remington Rand actually manufacture propellers, or just assemble and test blades and hubs from the other plants? This might explain why I can't find any props with decals from Remington Rand. I don't know if Remington Rand had a foundry in their Johnson City NY plant, but I'm still researching that.

2. Does anyone know how to specifically tell which props came out of the Remington Rand plant? Was there a unique serial number identifier or model number?

Ideally I would love to find a single non-airworthy blade that came from this plant. I want to restore it to display condition and gift it to my mother, now 78 years of age.

Any and all information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Scott Huff

[The Inspector]

I found a ton of info about Remington-Rand propellers and especially Plant AF 59 in Johnson City, NY. on GOOGLE including how the 600,000 sq plant was all wooden and managed to duck closing or being torn down several times and is still in use right up to today.
Might be worth dropping the Lockheed-Martin Co. an E mail and see if their historical Dept @ Johnson City and see if they might have any info about Ham-Stan days.
Some corporations, like Boeing accept and nurture the histories of companies they absorb, there are others who back a dumpster up under the window to the archives department and shovel the overtaken companies history out the window like they never happened, like a certain airplane company formerly located in Farmington L.I. that had all it's history sent to the landfill by the new owners.

[SRHFLY]

Thanks for the reply.

I too found the Google info you referenced and the history cited on globalsecurity.org is interesting. This site implies props were actually manufactured at this plant, but it's puzzling that I have yet to find pictures of props with decals referencing this plant. My Dad grew up in Johnson City when the plant was built and he recalls the extensive security and round-the-clock construction to build the plant as quickly as possible. He also recalls the curved concrete voids in the floor so the prop blades could swing down under the floor during assembly and testing. It must have been an amazing place during the War.

My Uncle recently retired from Lockheed (Oswego, NY) and lives in Endwell, NY. I've already asked him for help and hopefully Lockheed has some historical information. Hopefully he will be able to find more specific information.

Still haven't found anyone that can tell me what serial numbers or model numbers came from that plant.

[Airlift48]

This ought to have some info

http://books.google.com/books/about/Handbook_for_plant_employees.html?id=VDLWHAAACAAJ

[Taigh Ramey]

For what it is worth; Norden bomb sights were made by different manufacturers like Carl L Norden, Lucas harold, Victor Adding Machine and Remington Rand. All of the manufacturers had their own name on the bottom of the data plate except Remington Rand. The Remington sights had the designers name of Carl L Norden on their data plates. Maybe the props were the same way as I have never seen a Remington Rand decal on the original props I have seen and I have been collecting info on all that I have seen so far. I haven't been looking that close for the different manufacturers serial numbers and the letter prefix indicating the manufacturer. I know NK was Nash Kelvinator and they made a large number of Hamilton Standard props and they had their own 'under license' decal. I will take a look from now on to see if I can identify a Remington serial number. Sorry I can't help more but it is an interesting subject. Does anyone have a listing of the different manufacturers and their serial number prefixes?

[SRHFLY]

Taigh,

Thank you for the response! It's an interesting correlation with the bomb sights manufactured by Remington Rand vice other firms and absence of any data plates.

I'm really hoping Remington Rand used a unique identifier in the serial number and someone in the wonderful world of warbirds can confirm this.

v/r,
Scott

[propguy]

Scott,

All Remington Rand propeller blade serial #s are prefaced by RR. These are also referred to as the MFG No. There was a specific decal for Remington blades that has "HAMILTON STANDARD PROPELLERS" in the gold oval and statements in the red area as follows:

Above the prop

MFD. BY
REMINGTON RAND, INC.
JOHNSON CITY, NY

Below the prop

MFD. UNDER
LICENSE FROM UNITED AIRCRAFT
CORP., EAST HARTFORD
CONN., U.S.A.

I have a number of original decals and some un-restored prop blades w/ the correct decals. Hope this helps.

Rich

[Taigh Ramey]

That's cool. Any chance of a picture or scan?

[Forgotten Field]

I didn't know Remington Rand built other than typewriters and M1911A1 .45's. There's a good book out there waiting to be written about the various manufacturers who built stuff in WWII under license or jobber contract. It is one of my favorite things to find a manufacturer I didn't know about who sub-contracted to another or license built stuff during WWII. Some of my favorites are:

National Postal Meter, IBM, Saginaw Steering Gear, and Rockola (jukebox maker)- M-1 Carbines
Smith Corona (typewriter maker)- M1903A3 Springfield Rifles
Johnson Fare Box Company- Aircraft O2 Regulators
Luscombe- made radio racks for the PBM Mariner
Tappan Stove Company- made mess tables for the PBM Mariner
Maytag- Made all the hydraulics for the B-26 Marauder
Frigidaire- M2 and M3 .50 Caliber Machine Guns
Armstrong (linoleum maker)- Camouflage nets


I own more stuff but these are the only ones that come to mind. When I get a decent place to put all the warehouses of stuff I own on display, things like this will be prominently displayed.

[barnbstormer]

Some corporations, like Boeing accept and nurture the histories of companies they absorb, there are others who back a dumpster up under the window to the archives department and shovel the overtaken companies history out the window like they never happened, like a certain airplane company formerly located in Farmington L.I. that had all it's history sent to the landfill by the new owners.

Inspector;
I remember living on Long Island, where we had our aircraft salvage operation on 7 acres, along with two buildings, one of which was 6,000 sq ft, clear span. It was full of our vintage aircraft and aero engine collection. I had seen a large photo in the Newsday, daily newspaper, of the large commercial dumpsters full of the historic aircraft company archives at Farmingdale. I tracked down, and contacted the new owners and offered to pay all their disposal and carting costs, if they would just have those dumpters delivered to our aviation operation, out in Riverhead LI, right down the LI Expressway...instead of the dump. They said we were not a recognized library or archival institution, and instead, shipped it all to the landfills! It is still a miserable memory.