Propelling the past: How one Kiwi keeps early aviation spinning

RNZ News

a day ago

Jeff Fox's Horowhenua workshop is full of propellers and machinery.
Photo:
RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
The next time you spot a vintage aircraft overhead, there's a good chance it's airborne thanks to the handiwork of a man from Manakau, an hour's drive from Wellington.
For more than 25 years, Jeff Fox has crafted wooden propellers for classic aircraft such as Tiger Moths and Sopwith Camels.
He puts up to 300 hours into each piece, with clients that include World War I aviation buff, Sir Peter Jackson.
When
RNZ
visited his Fox Props business in Horowhenua, Fox was shaping a Tiger Moth propeller, all part of his work keeping remnants of early aviation alive.
"One of the first props I did was for the Will Scotland aircraft, the Caudron. That was flown in early 1914 down in Te Horo. That aircraft went on to the first cross-country flights in Australasia, Invercargill to Gore."
Scotland was a New Zealand aviation pioneer.
One of only a few in the world to hand-make wooden propellers, while not a pilot himself, Fox delves into the stories of the planes he keeps in the air and those early aviators.
"That aircraft eventually got pranged doing a demonstration flight out of Athletic Park [in Wellington], and he couldn't get back in because of wind. He got blown into the hills above the Basin Reserve - actually into the trees. He was the first guy to climb out of a tree that hadn't climbed up it."
Dry-humoured, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Fox is at home in his workshop, which stands only metres from his house.
Its walls are lined with propellers and pictures of planes, including some that look odd to the modern eye, like the German tri-winged aircraft from the early 20th century.
In more than 25 years, Jeff Fox has crafted about 260 propellers.
Photo:
RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
A builder and joiner by trade, Fox started restoring classic cars, and that led to requests for work on classic planes.
"It's not just the propeller. It's also a history lesson in what the early pilots had to put up with, the conditions they lived in and their life expectancies.
"As one of my mates said: This was in the days when the planes were built of wood and the men were built of steel. Today it's the other way around. You better believe it."
Half of Fox's workshop is devoted to his hobby of doing up old motorbikes, and the other half to the propeller business - he said that's the half that made the money, the other side lost it.
He does work for aviation enthusiasts in New Zealand and abroad.
Propellers destined for a vintage Tiger Moth aircraft.
Photo:
RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
"I was very fortunate to be involved early on with a lot of Peter Jackson's aircraft projects through a mate of mine, Stuart Tantrum, in Levin. He restored the camel for Peter, and that needed a propeller."
The amount of work varies. Sometimes he might do a couple of propellers a year, sometimes a lot more.
Some propellers, such as ones with four blades, take up to 300 hours, some much less, and they cost anything from just over $8000 to more than $20,000.
Fox uses quality imported wood, something he's particular about.
"Those Tiger Moth ones [in the workshop] are seven layers of sapele mahogany. A lot of the originals were Honduras mahogany, which we can't get here. I think the last Honduras we had into this country was in the 1920s, but sapele's a very close second."
The 66-year-old reckons he's made about 260 propellers and has no plans to retire.
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